Hello, all: About a month ago or so, I suddenly began to get interference on the AM band in my house. It is mainly in the middle and lower end of the dial. It affects all the AM radios in my house, so it is not a problem with any set in particular. Using a battery powered radio today I wandered around the house until it got the most intense. This is in the corner of my basement where the electrical, phone, and cable come in. Switching off circuits one at a time did nothing. Putting the radio near the phone lines didn't increase the volume. Putting near the cable line did. The noise is a fluttering sound, like a helicopter. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. Mark from Kalamazoo

Would think it's a problem with the cable line ground shielding. If you have splitters or line taps. Check all the fittings for a faulty F-fitting connection.

:Would think it's a problem with the cable line ground shielding. If you have splitters or line taps. Check all the fittings for a faulty F-fitting connection.
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There should also be a fitting outside the house to allow a wire to be tied to earth ground. If not one needs to be installed. Possible that ground came loose?

Thanks, guys. I will go out tomorrow and check for proper ground. I know that there was a ground connected, but perhaps it has come loose. Mark from Kalamazoo

: Thanks, guys. I will go out tomorrow and check for proper ground. I know that there was a ground connected, but perhaps it has come loose. Mark from Kalamazoo
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The best symptom is that it just started, so it MUST be something that changed.
Terry

Okay, let's add another wrinkle to the story. We had a big ice storm here and the power was out in my neighborhood. Turned on the battery radio and the interference was gone. But people who had power also had cable TV. So, I'm assuming that the cable was still live into my house. Power's back on and the noise is back, but less intense now. Hmmm.
Mark from Kalamazoo

:Hello, all: About a month ago or so, I suddenly began to get interference on the AM band in my house. It is mainly in the middle and lower end of the dial. It affects all the AM radios in my house, so it is not a problem with any set in particular. Using a battery powered radio today I wandered around the house until it got the most intense. This is in the corner of my basement where the electrical, phone, and cable come in. Switching off circuits one at a time did nothing. Putting the radio near the phone lines didn't increase the volume. Putting near the cable line did. The noise is a fluttering sound, like a helicopter. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. Mark from Kalamazoo
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There is a filter that is used to block interference from cable to radio and vice-versa. A friend of mine lived next to a radio tower..and radios and the cable was a nightmare like a crossover distortion. Cable came and put a filter in the line and no more issues. It is some kind of choke..can't remember the name...ask them...

Cindy: I will check into the filter/choke you mentioned. My fear (as EdM mentioned) is that the FCC is hardly concerned anymore about AM radio interference and so I may be stuck. But, I will keep trying. The interference is keeping me from listening to AM 740 out of Toronto, about the last AM station worth listening to anymore. Mark from Kalamazoo

:Hello, all: About a month ago or so, I suddenly began to get interference on the AM band in my house. It is mainly in the middle and lower end of the dial. It affects all the AM radios in my house, so it is not a problem with any set in particular. Using a battery powered radio today I wandered around the house until it got the most intense. This is in the corner of my basement where the electrical, phone, and cable come in. Switching off circuits one at a time did nothing. Putting the radio near the phone lines didn't increase the volume. Putting near the cable line did. The noise is a fluttering sound, like a helicopter. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. Mark from Kalamazoo
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Perhaps your neighbor just bought a new computer or large screen TV, or changed services or equipment, and his interferrence can come in on your cable. Are you or your neighbor using any type of wireless interface to anything? FCC doesn't seem to be paying too much attention to interferrence on the standard AM band these days. I can tell when my neighbor turns his computer on. Can you get access to where cable comes in your home, disconnect it temporarily, and see if the noise goes away. EdM

::Hello, all: About a month ago or so, I suddenly began to get interference on the AM band in my house. It is mainly in the middle and lower end of the dial. It affects all the AM radios in my house, so it is not a problem with any set in particular. Using a battery powered radio today I wandered around the house until it got the most intense. This is in the corner of my basement where the electrical, phone, and cable come in. Switching off circuits one at a time did nothing. Putting the radio near the phone lines didn't increase the volume. Putting near the cable line did. The noise is a fluttering sound, like a helicopter. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. Mark from Kalamazoo
::
:Perhaps your neighbor just bought a new computer or large screen TV, or changed services or equipment, and his interferrence can come in on your cable. Are you or your neighbor using any type of wireless interface to anything? FCC doesn't seem to be paying too much attention to interferrence on the standard AM band these days. I can tell when my neighbor turns his computer on. Can you get access to where cable comes in your home, disconnect it temporarily, and see if the noise goes away. EdM
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Are you really close to a strong broadcast station of any type? I have seen signals heterodyne with other signals in the oddest things (including a corroded solder joint in a copper rain pipe), and re-radiate an interferring signal. Also, electric power companies are installing meters that can be read remotely by radio signals fed down the power line (and remotely control air conditioning, etc.) (Smart-grid / load shedding, etc.) This creates interferrence in the low and middle of the AM band. (It can be filtered somewhat by large AC (motor run) capacitors across the line.) EdM

EdM: My next door neighbor has a wireless internet modem, but then so do I. I did notice that he got a flat panel TV in the last month or two. I wonder about that. When the weather warms up a bit, I will d/c the cable from outside and see if that changes anything. Mark from Kalamazoo

A few years ago I started to get all sorts of interference on TV (over the air) and AM radio, it started all of a sudden. After days of testing and turning off my neighbors main power it was traced to a small electronic air cleaner he had plugged into his bedroom.
His house was over 75 feet from mine, but still casued havoc. It had been in use for years but something went wrong with it, they never knew but I did. Unplugging it stopped the interference.

Did you try truning off your main power and testing with the portable radio to see if it is coming from you house ?

Yes, Bob, I flipped off breakers one-by-one and the interference did not go away. Mark

I would suggest switching off the main, if it is coming in on the power line and radiating from the AC wiring in you home, switching off one at a time may not do it. If you have time to re-set all the clocks in the house maybe trying shutting off the main should be an option. But it does sound like it is coming in from the TV cable. Cable TV pretty much uses the whole spectrum and if the ground is missing or the sheeth broken it would radiate.
Another point, if you have a phone cable coming in and there is a T1 riding inside the cable on the pole it may spill onto you pair. T1's work at 1.55 meg. Not likely that a T1 would be in a residential cable, but stranger things have happened.
I'm in NYC and get 740 very week, so i get it over the internet and re-broadcast it via a SSTRAN transmitter and a small FM transmitter, good station.

Bob

Bob: You lost me with the T1. What is that? Mark from Kalamazoo

T1 is a carrier system that can run on copper phone wires, it can put 24 voice channels on one set of copper wires. It is digital and runs at 1.5 meg. Before fiber it was one of the main stays of connecting distant centeral offices. It can also be used for data transmission at the 1.5 meg. rate.

Most centerl office to centeral office connections are now on fiber, but there are still T1 circutis being used out to customers, although not nearly as many as in the past.

If one is running on an unbalanced copper pair it will spill onto other pairs in the cable. It is highly unlikely that this is you trouble, but I have seen it happen in the past.

Just Google 'T1 carrier system' if you want more details on how it works.

Bob

:T1 is a carrier system that can run on copper phone wires, it can put 24 voice channels on one set of copper wires. It is digital and runs at 1.5 meg. Before fiber it was one of the main stays of connecting distant centeral offices. It can also be used for data transmission at the 1.5 meg. rate.
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:Most centerl office to centeral office connections are now on fiber, but there are still T1 circutis being used out to customers, although not nearly as many as in the past.
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:If one is running on an unbalanced copper pair it will spill onto other pairs in the cable. It is highly unlikely that this is you trouble, but I have seen it happen in the past.
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:Just Google 'T1 carrier system' if you want more details on how it works.
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:Bob
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I had hum coming into my recording studio, which had an audio output from the TV. I wired two 300 ohm to 75 ohm transformers, (baluns), back to back, hooked them into the cable line and the hum disappeared. These MUST be the transformer type, NOT the resistor.
I'm not saying this will work in your situation, but if the interference is on the cable line, it MIGHT work. Ya nevva know!
Terry

:Hello, all: About a month ago or so, I suddenly began to get interference on the AM band in my house. It is mainly in the middle and lower end of the dial. It affects all the AM radios in my house, so it is not a problem with any set in particular. Using a battery powered radio today I wandered around the house until it got the most intense. This is in the corner of my basement where the electrical, phone, and cable come in. Switching off circuits one at a time did nothing. Putting the radio near the phone lines didn't increase the volume. Putting near the cable line did. The noise is a fluttering sound, like a helicopter. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks. Mark from Kalamazoo
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Update: The interference mysteriously disappeared just as quickly as it came. I never did figure it out. Turning off the main breaker would stop the noise, but turning off individual breakers would not stop it. I'm back to listening to AM 740 at night clear as a bell. Mark from Kalamazoo

:Update: The interference mysteriously disappeared just as quickly as it came. I never did figure it out. Turning off the main breaker would stop the noise, but turning off individual breakers would not stop it. I'm back to listening to AM 740 at night clear as a bell. Mark from Kalamazoo

Mark,

If turning of the Mains made it go away but turning off the individual breakers did not; I would suspect a poor contact between the mains and the buss bar for the individual breakers. That or a poor connection between the mains breaker and the meter or the meter and the transformer; which was only an issue under load. Possibly corrosion?

Richard

Richard: I wondered about the meter, but now that it has stopped, I guessing there would be no point to contacting the power company. Mark from Kalamazoo

::Update: The interference mysteriously disappeared just as quickly as it came. I never did figure it out. Turning off the main breaker would stop the noise, but turning off individual breakers would not stop it. I'm back to listening to AM 740 at night clear as a bell. Mark from Kalamazoo
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:Mark,
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:If turning of the Mains made it go away but turning off the individual breakers did not; I would suspect a poor contact between the mains and the buss bar for the individual breakers. That or a poor connection between the mains breaker and the meter or the meter and the transformer; which was only an issue under load. Possibly corrosion?
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:Richard
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Mark,
If you got aluminum cable from the meter head to your breaker box, which the vast majority are, then carefully try tightening the main connections on the breaker box (if you trust yourself). Aluminum wire/cable is subject to 60HZ vibration lossening over time. This is why aluminum secondary wiring is no longer allowed for distribtion to circuits in the home (from the breaker outputs to circuit loads). Code wise aluminum secondary distribution wiring must either be replaced or pigtailed at the breaker box and at the destination end of the circuits. (At least in most states? I believe this is the National Electrical code.) Aluminum cable into the home breaker box in still the norm. I have also seen main breakers arc into the breaker box buss, as Richard stated, due to poor contact or just bad design of the box. If you suspect this you may want to get a electrician in to look at it if you don't feel safe doing it yourself. These can be somewhat common problems. Every time I move into a 'new' house I check the tightness of all the connections at the breaker box. It is amazing to see some of the 'Rube Goldberg' things people have done at breaker boxes! John

John: If it was arcing, wouldn't the interference be irregular and in bursts? What I was hearing was a very rhythmic fluttering sound that did not change in intensity or speed. And I suspect I would probably see flickering lights or such if it was arcing, wouldn't I? As for aluminum wiring, my house was built in 1955. I will peek behind the panel one of these days to see what is back there, but I don't trust myself to work on it. Mark from Kalamazoo

I know what fluttering sound you were hearing. I have heard it before, and I am not sure if my parents had cable (Road Runner) at the time or not. ...But back when I lived with them....probably 10 or more years ago, I heard that sound on my radios. It would come and go.

I had Road Runner (Time Warner Cable internet) at my apartment a few years ago, but I don't remember hearing that weird fluttering noise. There's too much interference around here to tell, though. Everyone in the building has wireless internet, and that creates all sorts of hum and hash on my radios. Since there isn't much to listen to in Milwaukee on AM anymore, this doesn't bother me, as I pipe in all of my music through the amplifier, but it used to bother me. I also joined the bandwagon and got myself wireless internet. Oh well. It sure is convenient. What's ironic and superb is that I can place my laptop next to my Crosley Super 11 and pipe pandora.com into it, which I couldn't do if my laptop were wired to the internet.

....Also regarding that fluttering noise you hear, my neighbor (by my parents') used to have cable, and somehow he accidentally connected it to his rooftop antenna, and so some cable stations were broadcast all over the neighborhood. ...That may have been a source of the interference I heard on my radios back then.

T.

Thanks for the input, Thomas. I had wondered if it was the cable at first, but with the cable connected and the power off, it seems that it has to be related to the power. I agree, there are so many things that interfere with AM reception these days and so few people who actually listen to AM radio that I just don't think anyone would take this problem seriously. Mark from Kalamazoo

I used to ask everyone in my building to turn off their wireless internet when they weren't using it, but that never happened. No reason for me to listen to AM anymore, though, so I don't care.

T.