Earthing Problem On Guitar Amplifiers?

[Surf's Up]

Hay If anyone could help me it would be much appreciated.

OK

I have two Amplifiers, a Pre CBS Fender Bassman 50, ('64 I think), and a Selmer Thunderbird 30 (also '64 or '65).

I have never had any problems with these two amps, until now.......

I have moved to Berlin from London, so my amps are now feeding off 230 volts instead of 240 volts, but the Bassman has a selector switch which is now set to 230.

I am also living in the eves of an old church which has very old circuitry and I'm high up, about 6 stories.

The problem is that I'm getting radio blasting out of my amps when they are set too Zero, and all sorts off white noise etc when the amps are set at any volume.(the effect is not as bad on the bassman).

I'm assuming its an earthing problem? could be the amps where damaged in shipping, but both in the same way?

P.S. None of the rest of my recording gear is effected in any way.
Doesn't change with guitar plugged in or out.
The local guitar shops don't know what the problem is, (but I think maybe they are unfamiliar with valve amps)

ANything at all would be much appreciated

 

[gitrguy87]

Ive never heard of earthing... Do you mean grounding?

 

[ggunn]

Hay If anyone could help me it would be much appreciated.

OK

I have two Amplifiers, a Pre CBS Fender Bassman 50, ('64 I think), and a Selmer Thunderbird 30 (also '64 or '65).

I have never had any problems with these two amps, until now.......

I have moved to Berlin from London, so my amps are now feeding off 230 volts instead of 240 volts, but the Bassman has a selector switch which is now set to 230.

I am also living in the eves of an old church which has very old circuitry and I'm high up, about 6 stories.

The problem is that I'm getting radio blasting out of my amps when they are set too Zero, and all sorts off white noise etc when the amps are set at any volume.(the effect is not as bad on the bassman).

I'm assuming its an earthing problem? could be the amps where damaged in shipping, but both in the same way?

P.S. None of the rest of my recording gear is effected in any way.
Doesn't change with guitar plugged in or out.
The local guitar shops don't know what the problem is, (but I think maybe they are unfamiliar with valve amps)

ANything at all would be much appreciated

A common mod for those old Fenders is to replace the twisted pairs of leads that connect the input jacks on the front panel to the PTP board with coaxial wiring. That reduces the RF interference in the most sensitive section of the amplifier. Perhaps doing that would help you.

You mention the very old wiring where you are living. Does it have a separate ground pin from neutral? If not, then you could try connecting the ground pin of the AC plug on your amp to a water pipe. Better yet, you could pound a copper rod into the ground as close to your digs as possible and run some fairly heavy gauge low resistance copper wire from it to a grounding lug to ground your amps.

I am not familiar with European wiring code, but a little googling shows that a common practice in some places in Europe is to tie the ground and neutral together at the supply transformer, which means you don't have a true earth ground. If that's the case, you could try ground lifting your amps at the plug and then tying the ground pin to a water pipe or copper rod as I have described above.

Good luck.

 

[gusfinley]

you see.....

Ive never heard of earthing... Do you mean grounding?

grounding = US Terminology

Earthing = European Terminology

kinda like the whole tube vs. valve thing....

grounding is to tubes as eathing is to valves

 

[Surf's Up]

Thanks

Yeah

Sorry about the terminology thing, I meant Grounding,

OK I'm gonna try connecting the earth to a water pipe which strangely is close to the amplifier.

Have to think about the Copper in the ground thing, but will discuss with the church, thinking they may have something like this going already.

Thanks alot for the advice

Surf's Up

Will continue thread with results for any other with same problem later.

 

[Surf's Up]

Grounding Lug

Ok

Sorry about this but what do you mean by 'Grounding Lug'

Cheers

Surf's Up

 

[ggunn]

Ok

Sorry about this but what do you mean by 'Grounding Lug'

Cheers

Surf's Up

A central point for a ground connection.