Hum with Ramsey FM25B,,,, help?

[carsonsig]

Hey everyone.... got my ramsey up and going. it works great... but when you are right in front of my house, if you turn up the volume in your car, there is a humming. when you drive away a bit, it seems to clear before the signal is lost. I have it wired with 3.5 mm from my laptops headphone jack, to the ramsey, out the ramsey to audio Red whites to go into the stereo for the speaker. I am using the included antenna...


am I doing something wrong? should it be further from the computer or stereo?


is it the brick on a cord power supply? any help would be great! thanks!

[tomskillman]

Mine had an annoying low hum until I used an external antenna. I just ran some coax to my roof and mounted an old TV antenna with the 2 masts fully extended, opened 180 degrees apart. Seems to have cured the hum and also given me a bit better coverage than I had before.


carsonsig wrote:

Hey everyone.... got my ramsey up and going. it works great... but when you are right in front of my house, if you turn up the volume in your car, there is a humming. when you drive away a bit, it seems to clear before the signal is lost. I have it wired with 3.5 mm from my laptops headphone jack, to the ramsey, out the ramsey to audio Red whites to go into the stereo for the speaker. I am using the included antenna...





am I doing something wrong? should it be further from the computer or stereo?





is it the brick on a cord power supply? any help would be great! thanks!

[crackchecker]

Had a Hum too with any antenna I used... Finally found that the antenna was too close to ANY power source.

Now that it's moved I have no hum..

[carsonsig]

so like extension cord on the ramsey so it is far away from anything else such as the computer stereo etc...? it will still be 18" from its own brick.... worth a try.

[roknjohn]

Does the hum go away if you run the laptop on battery. If so, then you probably have a ground loop issue. While there is a lengthy discussion on ground loops and their cause, one short cut way to fix it is to use a "mickey mouse" - a three prong to two prong adapter. In other words, break the bonding ground to one piece of equipment. I know this will invoke many responses from the electricians about safety but it works.

[carsonsig]

Solid suggestion Roknjohn... thanks! This is my first FM, and I just dont know what causes the errors, so knowing how to kind of test stuff is a huge help.

[centauri61032]

I also had hum problems with my Ramsey. Put up with it for the first year. But during the summer, I found a fix. I took a piece of insulated wire (any size will do). I stripped off a few inches from one end, and wrapped it around the antenna connector on the rear until it was nice and tight. (I have a coax cable attached to the connector, but was still able to wrap it around the exposed threads.) Then I took the other end and attached it to the screw that hold the plate onto my power outlet on the wall. Basically, I connected the ground side of the antenna to a known good electrical ground. This totally eliminated my hum, and has worked great ever since.