[DCASAZZA]

After getting my 650 to a point called finished i've been playing it in my garage for a while before moving it into the living room. This morning I noticed a loud hum but only when tuned on a station. It had a raspy quality of a renegade light dimmer. It turned out to be a string of outdoor christmas lights, not a big supprise right. Well here is the supprise part. The string was OFF. Suspecting leakage of a hot string to ground from a miswired switch (on a neutral side) I checked the voltage at the end of the heavy duty extension, with the switch off, 0 volts at the end across all three wires!
When I unplug the "dead" string from the "dead" cord the raspy hum goes away. I dont know about y'all but this is a first for this guy.

Buy the way I have restored many a dark string of lights with a telecom sniffer placed next to the dark section. It hums but bad bulbs tend to be very microphonic and you will likly find more than on a section.

By the way this was the first time restoring a cabinet and using lacquer as a finish. WOW I'm sold, the finish came out beautiful while still retaining the character if the piece. This was a train wreck when I started and the final disposition of the radio make me feel good about its journey to today. I'll post pictures soon via links.

Merry Christmas from South Florida

[Ron Ramirez]

The raspy hum caused by a turned-off set of Christmas lights does seem a bit odd.

Where I live, the local talk station often has hum in it. It is the station's fault...when the hum is there, it is there no matter what radio one uses to listen to it, be it at home or in the car.

As to the lacquer finish...much better than stain and poly, yes?

[BDM]

That is strange. As Ron noted, some stations seem to have this on their audio. What's even stranger for me, is one radio may have, yet another doesn't show it. But as soon as the program changes, the hum is gone. 800 CKLW is noted for this in my area.