My piano picks up the the radio

September 29, 2009 1:09 PM

My new Casio digital piano picks up the radio. I think this is a bug not a feature. You can very faintly hear a music station coming out of one of the speakers (which is very distracting). Any ideas on how to fix it?
posted by TrashyRambo to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Is there any cabling you can easily get to? Maybe you could wrap some ferrites around it?
posted by Calloused_Foot at 1:22 PM on September 29, 2009

I know nothing about any of this, just we'd hear the radio annoyingly incessantly through speakers at my old shitty apartment, and the resident DJs claimed it was because the electricity wasn't grounded. The same speakers and TVs don't have any problems in our new house.

Here is an article I totally don't understand that kind of explains it, I think?
posted by Juliet Banana at 3:59 PM on September 29, 2009

My telephone does this occasionally. Even worse, it's a country station! I've found rerouting the wires usually solves it.
posted by COD at 4:51 PM on September 29, 2009

Best answer: It is a ground/insulation problem inside, somewhere. They need to open up the case. Some cable inside is resonating with radio frequencies which only happens when it is unprotected or receiving signal from an unprotected source. Therefore it is either a ground problem (unlikely) or is missing some insulation (slightly more likely).

If it is only coming out of one speaker that narrows down the range- the problem is likely between the pre-amp/amp and the speaker.

If you just bought it, you should return it to the store. If it is new and it were me, I'd open it up and look at it but probably wouldn't try messing with it unless I saw an obvious fix. Get thee to an authorized service provider (see the back of your Casio manual, or go on Casio.com)
posted by arnicae at 6:18 PM on September 29, 2009

The phones at my high school used to have this problem. They added some insulation or something, I don't know. The point is, it's a common phenomenon for radio waves to be spontaneously translated to sound by electronics, and a brief trip down to the Radio Shack solves this. Or it would have back in 1999; I don't know if they still do those kinds of consultations.
posted by Electrius at 7:55 PM on September 29, 2009

It's not necessarily a fault or something missing that the factory forgot to install. It might be that but its more likely just that some consumer electronics stuff isn't particularly well shielded. I guess it comes down to cost so they make it resilient enough for most situations but if you happen to be in a high signal area and a few other things fall into place then these things can happen.

The simple thing to try is to clip something called a ferrite bead around some of the cables. Radio Shack sell some at about $5 each although I'm not sure how good they are and you can buy cheaper online. You probably need several to go on the various cables. I suggest at least trying one on the cable to the speaker that has the problem. It should probably go at the piano end. The cable is acting as an antenna but feedback within the amplifier circuitry gets it back into the input of the amplifier.
posted by tetranz at 8:14 PM on September 29, 2009