I have a soundblaster PC sound card if I run a line in splitter and two radios one of the terminals causes massive humm.....I went to radioshack and bought a stereo out and two mono in....the audio cables from radio to soundcard are stereo is that the problem ?
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pc soundcard + radio question
- Thread starter Se7en
- Start date
I have a second sound blaster card....will windows XP support two ?
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Yes it sure will...I run 2 sound cards one for the radio and 1 for everything else...
A second radio's feed into a 'Y' cable is seldom going to do much good. As already stated, the potential for a ground loop is one problem with that. Another is that sound card "grounds" are very seldom actually at ground potential, they are almost always above ground by a few volts (they 'float'). Which means that if the sound card's ground is grounded to the computer's chassis, it causes a 'turn off' of the computer (shorts the sound card). That can happen if the computer and radio's are both grounded to the same station ground. One of the things a typical interface does is eliminate that possibility.
If you can disconnect one radio, only connect one at a time, that can get rid of that hum, probably. Why both connected at the same time?
I've got a 'work around' for that multiple sound card thingy, it's a USB sound card. Of course that introduces other complications, another driver for that sound card, and a USB hub (in my case, lot's of USB ports, 128 of them are possible!). Why do it that way? It was cheap, $20 for a sound card, no slot required in the computer. The sound card in the computer only does things for the computer, the external one(s) handle radio stuff. I can't say that's -the- way to do it, it just works out handier/easier for me.
- 'Doc
If you can disconnect one radio, only connect one at a time, that can get rid of that hum, probably. Why both connected at the same time?
I've got a 'work around' for that multiple sound card thingy, it's a USB sound card. Of course that introduces other complications, another driver for that sound card, and a USB hub (in my case, lot's of USB ports, 128 of them are possible!). Why do it that way? It was cheap, $20 for a sound card, no slot required in the computer. The sound card in the computer only does things for the computer, the external one(s) handle radio stuff. I can't say that's -the- way to do it, it just works out handier/easier for me.
- 'Doc
I recently picked up a little SignaLink SL1+ to interface my radio with my computer. It has it's own built in sound card and VOX PTT to activate the transmit on my radio. However because the SignaLink connects to the computer sound card (they do make USB SignaLink models, but I got mine used and cheap) I am lucky to have rear and front sound card connections (mic in & spk out) on my computer so that my powered computer speakers can remain attached at the rear and the SignaLink connected to the front of the computer.
On the left is hf on the right is vhf uhf. 6.1 surround sound on hf is amazing audio for me. I hate external speakers and internal speakers on my base. I will just manually connect each radio just wanted to be able to listen to vhf while talking on hf or vise versa. Here's the catch. If both are plugged in to the y connecter and turned on no hum if I shut one off the humming starts.
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So in effect, you want to mix two signals. I can think of two ways of doing that, one by using a 'mixer', the other by putting one 'source' to the 'L' speakers, one to the 'R' speakers. The first way means more expense and another gadget. The second would mean some rewiring and would still be subject to possible hums/buzzes. That "Ground Loop Isolator" is probably a simple transformer/capacitor circuit for isolation, and would probably work (one in each radio's output line), and similar to the isolation circuits of most radio/computer interfaces. (That's just a guess about that 'isolator' thingy, I've never seen one.)
Good luck.
- 'Doc
Good luck.
- 'Doc
Second soundcard wont work unless I reverse the 'y' plug and use it on the outputs. As for the hum what I do is just turn off both radios and power supplys if not in use. & if using a radio both have to be on which eliminates all humm
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