Yesterday, I finally retired the pair of Jensen desktop speakers that have been dutifully audibilizing my home computers for the past 22-plus years. It’s not that they failed. They worked fine. It’s that for the past five or so years they’ve been intermittently connected to another dimension. Specifically they’ve been broadcasting at veeeery low volumes and typically only early in the mornings, some Spanish-language talkradio station — unknown whether it was a licensed one on the AM or FM bands, or some pirate shortwaver.
All I know is that typically in the still of the early mornings, I could come down and if I listened carefully I could hear it, and upon doing so I then couldn’t get it out of my ears. And no, I’m not crazy. Click the following link for my search of radio broadcasts through my damn computer speakers and you’ll see I’m neither nutz nor alone. The problem is ascribed to Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), with the most likely cause being my proximity to such broadcast origins combined with any unshielded speaker wiring connected to my computer, that thus acts as an antenna.
The solutions are generally as follows: 1) Move the speakers to another location. 2) Shorten up the wires. 3) Purchase and attach filtering Ferrite clamps or rings to the wiring . I tried the first two, to no avail. I even swapped out the connector wire with others I happened to have. No go. So I was just about to purchase the last suggested option, when I decided to hell with ferrite doohickies, and instead just buy a new pair that were properly shielded. It didn’t take long and later that day I unceremoniously removed the Jensens and plugged in a properly protected $22 set of Logitechs.
In the predawn this morning? When I sat down at my computer with fingers crossed to the point of being painful and brought her out of sleep mode? I listened. I listened caaaaaarefully. ¿El silencio? ¡Era de oro!
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