Strange RFI(?) phenomenon

[d3adpixel]

Hi all, I am getting some god awful signal noise from all my guitars and basses in my new house. The noise disappears completely when I face the north wall of my house exactly, or exactly away from it.

So, in other words, the noise disappears when my pickups are exactly perpendicular to the north/south line of my house - which not necessarily true north (i didn't check).

If I find the "sweet spot" and then tilt my guitar left, right, up or down, it gets louder. If I cut the volume on the guitar, the noise disappears. So I have deduced that the noise HAS to be coming from my pickups. Is my thinking correct?

I have been reading up a little bit on emi/rfi but I haven't been able to find anything on this specific issue. Why does it disappear completely when I face a certain direction?

I live on top of a mountain in a densely populated urban area. I can only imagine the kind of radiation that's flying around up here. I am not hearing radio stations or anything, just a nasty hiss. My house probably has fairly old wiring.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone experienced this? What steps can I take? Should I do a custom shielding job on my guitar?

Thanks everybody.

 

[ggunn]

Hi all, I am getting some god awful signal noise from all my guitars and basses in my new house. The noise disappears completely when I face the north wall of my house exactly, or exactly away from it.

So, in other words, the noise disappears when my pickups are exactly perpendicular to the north/south line of my house - which not necessarily true north (i didn't check).

If I find the "sweet spot" and then tilt my guitar left, right, up or down, it gets louder. If I cut the volume on the guitar, the noise disappears. So I have deduced that the noise HAS to be coming from my pickups. Is my thinking correct?

I have been reading up a little bit on emi/rfi but I haven't been able to find anything on this specific issue. Why does it disappear completely when I face a certain direction?

I live on top of a mountain in a densely populated urban area. I can only imagine the kind of radiation that's flying around up here. I am not hearing radio stations or anything, just a nasty hiss. My house probably has fairly old wiring.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone experienced this? What steps can I take? Should I do a custom shielding job on my guitar?

Thanks everybody.

I have a similar situation in my studio. It's hum, not hiss, but it's directional. In my case, it's a set of medium level electrical distribution lines that run overhead up the side of my property that is the culprit. Shielding (either guitars or the room) probably won't help. Using humbuckers or two single coil pickups in parallel where one of them is RWRP will.