Help! PC / Tuner Interference...

Hiya all,

Having recently put my PC under my Hifi rack (TNT Flexytable style) when ever my network cable is plugged in, I cannot get Radio 1 on my Tuner. Is there any way I could sheild things for intererence...?

My rack is like this:

CDs and DVDs
20mm MDF Shelf

NAD Amp
20mm MDF Shelf

NAD CD player
20mm MDF Shelf

NAD tuner
20mm MDF Shelf

PC
Floor

It is qutie near the Left hand Speaker and the TV (But the problem has only started when I put the PC in...)

Thanks for any help!

Mark

 

Why not put the pc at the bottom, then all the media and the sources above. It would get it all a little bit away from the pc.

 

It is... ? Did I miss something? Sorry?

 

From the way you listed, it looks like you have the pc on the floor, and the nad right above?

 

Yes, you are right. It's a pain and a half because having almost finished the rack (just waiting to get the NAD poweramp case to put the PC inside) I looks great, but I can only listen to a few radio stations. CD quality is second to none though (well, none in my price range anyway).

 

I'm only guessing on a subject little remembered, but maybe the tuner is being swamped by an out-of-band signal? If so, wouldn't it be possible to put some kind of low-pass filter on the RF input to the tuner? If this were so, an external antenna and well-screened coax feed might also help. Hopefully, it may not be the case that stuff is being radiated from the computer and being picked up parasitically by the tuner (bypassing the RF input solution.) Perhaps even a radio ham forum could help if you don't find an easy answer. (I have a copy of the ARRL's handbook on RF interference at home -- maybe I could have a scan for something.)

 

Steve, that would be great if you could

The antenna I have at the moment is pretty awful, so might try and investigate something with difference locations of the wire, as it goes very near the Cat5e LAN network cable.
I'll also try moving the swapping the tuner and the CD player, but would rather not as I don't want my CD player to get the same problems!
(if holding a sheet of silver foil over the PC in silver foil works, I might make the shelf above have a shiny underbelly - you can see how little I know about all this!

Thanks for all ye help!

Mark

 

Look at this as an opportunity..Unfortunately, I can get Radio 1

 

Try this...

Buy a sheet of blank PCB material from maplin. 50um copper is fine. Put it under the tuner.

 

Another thing to try after separating the items of equipment and reorienting the antenna is to connect the stereo and the PC to different power outlets or different power circuits.

 

I did a quick look on Google with the terms RFI PC tuner and got http://www.catchnet.com.au/~rjandusimports/rfi.html. This might help. I see you already use screened cat5e cable - that was going to be my next answer