I get NPR on my tape outs

[mamster2]

I have an M-Audio USB preamp which works fine recording into a laptop. But if I try to monitor off the RCA outs (or run them to a standalone recorder), I get the local NPR station (FM, I think) all over the speakers or recording. (I can hear it in the headphones, too.) I'd like to have the option of not using the laptop--the fan tends to go on, and once it told me it was recording but wasn't.

I borrowed a friend's Behringer compact mixer. Same deal: even if I use a short, well-shielded RCA cable, I pick up NPR. I get less of it with the Behringer, and it fades in and out depending on whether I'm touching the cable and how it's coiled, but it's definitely there.

This is not a new issue for me: I had to get rid of a powered center-channel speaker recently because it picked up the same station. And it's not hum, it's very clear radio signal.

I know the "correct" solution is to use balanced cables, but I don't have anything with balanced inputs. What else could I try in this situation?

One thing I thought of but haven't tried yet is: I don't get any radio through the headphone jack (as long as there's nothing plugged into the tape outs). Is there anything inherently wrong with going from a headphone amp to tape?

 

[M1Fanatic]

You could always move to a more conservative area of the country but that's hard to find anywhere now days.

Short of building a faraday cage for your room, balanced cables are one of your few options. You can use impedance matching transformers but that could get pricey. You might try moving the rig to a different part of the room but I doubt it will help.

Keep your signal cables away from line cables too. If they have to cross, make sure they do at 90° angles.

 

[Moseph]

It might be relatively expensive (all things considered), but you could do an inline transformation/adapter so that the actual connections at the device are unbalanced, but you immediately switch over to balanced cables for the cable run itself.

The adapters for a given channel would probably run you about $15 per channel at Radio Shack. They normally stock 1/4" Female to XLR male adapters that have transformers in them to correctly go from "mono" to "stereo. (i.e., unbalanced to balanced).

 

[Troy6120]

You gotta love "World Cafe"!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

As long as you're picking up "American Routes", "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" or "Prairie Home Companion", don't worry about it .

Otherwise, stop coiling your cables (not a great idea in any event), try running them in a different orientation, and contact the radio station and let them know your problem. As for that last one, you might be surprised just how far some stations will go to help you out in the way of supplying RFI filtering and/or cabling and such,

G.

 

[mamster2]

Glen, that hadn't occurred to me at all. Also, M1, that was funny. You too, Moseph. I do enjoy "Wait Wait." Just not while I'm recording!

So, Moseph, if I were going to try the transformers, are we talking about the same kind of thing you stick at the end of an XLR cable when you want to plug a low-Z mic into a hi-Z TS input?

On the mixer, I have balanced 1/4" TRS outs in addition to the unbalanced RCA outs. (There are no XLR outs on either of my mixers, I'm afraid.) Is there something I could get at Radio Shack that would let me go from a pair of those to the single stereo 1/8" TRS input on my Tascam?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I do enjoy "Wait Wait." Just not while I'm recording!

Look on the bright side; you can make your own answering machine message from Carl Castle without having to win any contests .

G.

 

[moresound]

I thought that NPR went to digital what are they doing on tape out?

I had a similar problem years ago. Turned out there was a repeater station not to far away. This one was hidden in the attic of a local country club/golf course (the station paid them to have it there) and it was tuned so as to block every other station from making it into that valley as soon as you drove into it you got this lame adult contemporary shmu from the other side of the state at an incredible volume.
After a lot of people complained for a few years and the tech fudged around for a while they decided to do away with the repeater. I think the FCC made them - not quite up to code.