Total posts : 45366
[quote=Greg_E]
In other words simplify the installation down to the most basic parts that will allow it to function.[/quote]
Amen to that. It’s almost always the quickest and surest way to fix a problem or at least figure out what the cause is or where it is.
It can be something as simple as a bad cable or connector, and if you tear it down to the transmitter and a battery and then add things one item at a time, it’s obvious when you find the place where the hum or whatever is coming from.
But yeah, sometimes one runs into the problem after “launch commit” and it can make a bad impression on the wrong people if you need to tinker with it much (that they’re aware of). Years ago when playing in bar bands and running sound for other bands I had more than a few times when things had been set up fast and there was some hum or feedback where it would have been nice to call a break and track it down, but since the bar owner and patrons would have taken a dim view of that I’d grit my teeth and tune it out as best I could with a parametric eq until a break.
One would think that schools would be supportive of their station, but I know some aren’t. The college station I got my first taste of broadcast on, even the bare budget was a problem. A lot of the gear we used was donated or loaned by the student djs, and the transmitter was built by the retired radio engineer that was kind enough to volunteer to be the engineer for our little class D FM built the transmitter from parts from his own junkbox and used an old army ammo case as the transmitter case.
It’s not the way it should be, but it seems that all too often it is.
I suppose there’s not some easy way you could check whatever the transmitter is grounded to so you make sure it’s actually connected to something resembling a decent electrical ground?
Also it’s been mentioned here that the Hamilton’s audio input is a balanced low-z line. Is the output of your sound chain to it the same? Or did you have to use or rig some sort of adapter?
Daniel
