I have a CD player and a turntable. I also have a really old boombox.
Bought it in 1992 from a store that was going out of business. In
case it matters, it's a Fisher PH-W1000.

Haven't replaced it since because it has a feature that used to be
hard to find and is now impossible to find: it has a "line in"
setup that lets me link my CD player and turntable to it with phono
cords. In other words, this boombox is my pre-amp, amplifier, *and*
speakers.

I'm planning to leave town later this year to a faraway place to go
to school. So this is not the right time for me to get much fancier
equipment, either money-wise or as far as the longevity of the gear
is concerned.

Anyway, though, my problem seems to be a common one, and before I
spend more getting this boombox repaired than I bought it for, I'm
hoping there's also a common fix. (I did check the FAQ, and found
no answer there, though the version at faqs.org links to a question
posted in 2003 same as mine and as yet unanswered there. And yes,
I also checked the manual that came with the boombox.)

No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
The antenna can be down, the FM/AM switch turned to AM, I can be
playing a tape or a record or a CD or another radio station, I can
have the volume down to mute, and it will *still* play, more or less
loudly, FM 106.

This problem has gotten worse over years. The only thing that has
any effect on it is the position of the box and its speakers. It
would be really nice not to have to rearrange my entire living room
a bunch of times looking for a position that avoids this problem -
especially since that seems likely to be just a temporary fix.

Is there a way I can fix it myself? If not, what should I expect
when taking it in to the shop?

Thanks

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer
http://www.panix.com/~josephb/ "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
Glass Mountain, Cynthia Voigt

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...
No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
The antenna can be down, the FM/AM switch turned to AM, I can be
playing a tape or a record or a CD or another radio station, I can
have the volume down to mute, and it will *still* play, more or less
loudly, FM 106.

I've got a set of cheap, amplified computer speakers that do the same thing.
:-(

The speakers have done this at two locations in the city. I still have them
in the basement, but I can't really consider them usable in their current
condition.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

In article ,
Jeff Findley wrote:

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...

No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
The antenna can be down, the FM/AM switch turned to AM, I can be
playing a tape or a record or a CD or another radio station, I can
have the volume down to mute, and it will *still* play, more or less
loudly, FM 106.

I've got a set of cheap, amplified computer speakers that do the same thing.
:-(

Huh. So is it a speaker problem?

Replacing the speakers seems saner than replacing the box would be.
Hmmmm. I could also try hooking the box to someone else's speakers
as a test...

-- JLB

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...
I have a CD player and a turntable. I also have a really old boombox.
Bought it in 1992 from a store that was going out of business. In
case it matters, it's a Fisher PH-W1000.

Haven't replaced it since because it has a feature that used to be
hard to find and is now impossible to find: it has a "line in"
setup that lets me link my CD player and turntable to it with phono
cords. In other words, this boombox is my pre-amp, amplifier, *and*
speakers.

Anyway, though, my problem seems to be a common one, and before I
spend more getting this boombox repaired than I bought it for, I'm
hoping there's also a common fix. (I did check the FAQ, and found
no answer there, though the version at faqs.org links to a question
posted in 2003 same as mine and as yet unanswered there. And yes,
I also checked the manual that came with the boombox.)

No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
The antenna can be down, the FM/AM switch turned to AM, I can be
playing a tape or a record or a CD or another radio station, I can
have the volume down to mute, and it will *still* play, more or less
loudly, FM 106.

This problem has got worse over years. The only thing that has
any effect on it is the position of the box and its speakers. It
would be really nice not to have to rearrange my entire living room
a bunch of times looking for a position that avoids this problem -
especially since that seems likely to be just a temporary fix.

Is there a way I can fix it myself? If not, what should I expect
when taking it in to the shop?

Thanks

--
Joe Bernstein, writer
http://www.panix.com/~josephb/ "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."

Try to disable both radio tuning ccts. An RF detector needs to be removed
somewhere in the cct, maybe a signal wire looped through hole of a ferrite
bead at the input will remedy this interference!
Jim

In article ,
Jim Gregory wrote:

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...

[boombox used as pre-amp+amp+speakers]
No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
[And not, in particular, the station I'm tuning it to, if it's on in
order to be used as a radio.]

Is there a way I can fix it myself? If not, what should I expect
when taking it in to the shop?

Try to disable both radio tuning ccts. An RF detector needs to be removed
somewhere in the cct, maybe a signal wire looped through hole of a ferrite
bead at the input will remedy this interference!

Um. Sorry to be stupid, but could you please unpack a bit?

1) What's a cct?

2) I grasp that before I try it I should find out for myself what's
a signal wire, and I'd be unlikely to find a ferrite bead without
understanding what *that* is. I even sort of have a guess what an
RF detector is, since I recently bought an RF modulator currently
linking my DVD player with my antique TV, but meant after that to
allow me to keep both CD player and turntable plugged in, if the
boombox outlives the TV in my use.
But unfortunately none of that disambiguates "the input". The
problem happens when I use the boombox as a radio, so there's no
*external* input involved. If a cct is a tuner, it can't also be
*the* input to the speakers, I mean, under normal use in which you
can choose the line in or the cassette decks as inputs instead of
the tuner. Do you mean an input to the speakers or an input to a cct?

Thanks!

(And yes, all this stupidity of mine *is* why I didn't try posting
on rec.audio.tech, of course. I've postponed posting at all thinking
I should read the *whole* FAQ first, but the problem has gone nuts
with a minor furniture rearrangement, so...)

Joe Bernstein

(and no, I haven't already tried testing whether it's a speaker
problem, but your suggestions do make more sense to me than that.
Obviously *something* in there has become a tuner hardwired to
one frequency and needing only electricity to produce output;
the only question is what. And I wouldn't have thought speakers
would have the right stuff in them to become tuners.)

--
Joe Bernstein, writer
http://www.panix.com/~josephb/ "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
Glass Mountain, Cynthia Voigt

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jim Gregory wrote:

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...

[boombox used as pre-amp+amp+speakers]
No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
[And not, in particular, the station I'm tuning it to, if it's on in
order to be used as a radio.]

Is there a way I can fix it myself? If not, what should I expect
when taking it in to the shop?

Try to disable both radio tuning ccts. An RF detector needs to be removed
somewhere in the cct, maybe a signal wire looped through hole of a
ferrite
bead at the input will remedy this interference!

Um. Sorry to be stupid, but could you please unpack a bit?

1) What's a cct?
------- Sorry, abbreviation for circuit

2) I grasp that before I try it I should find out for myself what's
a signal wire, and I'd be unlikely to find a ferrite bead without
understanding what *that* is. I even sort of have a guess what an
RF detector is, since I recently bought an RF modulator currently
linking my DVD player with my antique TV, but meant after that to
allow me to keep both CD player and turntable plugged in, if the
boombox outlives the TV in my use.
-------- The signal wire is the raw input signal from programme selector to
active stages.

But unfortunately none of that disambiguates "the input". The
problem happens when I use the boombox as a radio, so there's no
*external* input involved. If a cct is a tuner, it can't also be
*the* input to the speakers, I mean, under normal use in which you
can choose the line in or the cassette decks as inputs instead of
the tuner. Do you mean an input to the speakers or an input to a cct?

Thanks!
------ Can the DC voltages feeding the tuning stages be interrupted? This
will prove that the interference is caused by something else (yet breaking
thro' unsuppressed).

(And yes, all this stupidity of mine *is* why I didn't try posting
on rec.audio.tech, of course. I've postponed posting at all thinking
I should read the *whole* FAQ first, but the problem has gone nuts
with a minor furniture rearrangement, so...)

Joe Bernstein

(and no, I haven't already tried testing whether it's a speaker
problem, but your suggestions do make more sense to me than that.
Obviously *something* in there has become a tuner hardwired to
one frequency and needing only electricity to produce output;
the only question is what. And I wouldn't have thought speakers
would have the right stuff in them to become tuners.)
-------I take it you mean active speakers!

--
Joe Bernstein, writer
http://www.panix.com/~josephb/ "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."

Reply lines, sic ---------- from Jim

"Joe Bernstein" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jeff Findley wrote:
I've got a set of cheap, amplified computer speakers that do the same
thing.
:-(

Huh. So is it a speaker problem?

I suspect it's in the cheap amplifier circuit used in the amplified
speakers. I replaced the cheap amplified speakers with a better set of
amplified I found on clearance, and they sound very good. Absolutely no
radio reception on them.

Also, even if you detach the faulty amplified speakers from the line level
source, you still hear the FM station. It's annoying as hell, which is why
they're currently in the basement. I figure I might end up using them for
something else, if I can fix the FM reception issue.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

--
Tzortzakakis Dimitrios
major in electrical engineering,freelance electrician
FH von Iraklion-Kreta, freiberuflicher Elektriker
dimtzort AT otenet DOT gr
Ï "Joe Bernstein" Ýãñáøå óôï ìÞíõìá
...
I have a CD player and a turntable. I also have a really old boombox.
Bought it in 1992 from a store that was going out of business. In
case it matters, it's a Fisher PH-W1000.

Haven't replaced it since because it has a feature that used to be
hard to find and is now impossible to find: it has a "line in"
setup that lets me link my CD player and turntable to it with phono
cords. In other words, this boombox is my pre-amp, amplifier, *and*
speakers.
Yeah, electronics can be strange sometimes.I bought the Philips AK 540
turntable to play through my sony boombox's line in.That turntable was
designed to work only with 12 V DC , as it was part of some ancient Philips
boombox system (I found it in the shop I was working and was about to close,
abandoned in the attic).After plugging it in, I discovered the pre-amp stage
(RIAA cct) was not working.In fact, it didn't have power at all, because the
negative of the power supply was connected in the chassis of the motor and
the negative of the small pre-amp board was on the little rod in the middle
of the table.After connecting these two points with a little cable,it
worked.Also it said "12 V -100mA ~50Hz"But worked finally on 12 V DC.
I'm planning to leave town later this year to a faraway place to go
to school. So this is not the right time for me to get much fancier
equipment, either money-wise or as far as the longevity of the gear
is concerned.

Anyway, though, my problem seems to be a common one, and before I
spend more getting this boombox repaired than I bought it for, I'm
hoping there's also a common fix. (I did check the FAQ, and found
no answer there, though the version at faqs.org links to a question
posted in 2003 same as mine and as yet unanswered there. And yes,
I also checked the manual that came with the boombox.)

No matter what I do, it tunes in a radio station whenever it's on.
The antenna can be down, the FM/AM switch turned to AM, I can be
playing a tape or a record or a CD or another radio station, I can
have the volume down to mute, and it will *still* play, more or less
loudly, FM 106.

This problem has gotten worse over years. The only thing that has
any effect on it is the position of the box and its speakers. It
would be really nice not to have to rearrange my entire living room
a bunch of times looking for a position that avoids this problem -
especially since that seems likely to be just a temporary fix.

Is there a way I can fix it myself? If not, what should I expect
when taking it in to the shop?

Thanks

Joe Bernstein

--
Joe Bernstein, writer
http://www.panix.com/~josephb/ "She suited my mood, Sarah Mondleigh
did - it was like having a kitten in the room, like a vote for unreason."
Glass Mountain, Cynthia Voigt