Baffling radio interference

punomatic wrote:
Thanks again for all the replies. I am still curious, though, why the frequency of the popping noise decreases as engine RPM increases. Any thoughts on that specific question?

Is the little "static" ball in place on top of the antenna? How about wiggling the antenna plug at the radio to make sure the lead-in wire is grounded. I think I've actually run across this reverse peculiarity before, but I don't remember just what it turned out to be. It might be increased speed through the air slows the discharge rate.

Or maybe this. A long time ago I was doing some plaster work in a house, so I had half a clean bucket of water that I planned to use for washing up. It was winter, so I got the clear, pristine water from an outdoor spigot a day early so it would warm up. The best laid plans of mice and men...

The next morning I was shocked and appalled to discover a dead mouse in my clean wash water. I suspected a co-worker who was a practical-joker, so I carefully speared the tiny corpse on his chrome radio antenna. I, of course, used a convenient orifice on the soggy mouse.

When the co-worker discovered the frozen mouse, he immediately felt it was inappropriate and recklessly yanked the frozen little critter off his antenna. Unfortunately the little ball on top of the antenna came off with the stiff mouse and he foolishly tossed all of it, thereby losing the ball altogether.

His radio was particularily static-y after that, especially during thunderstorms. Since I felt he had to know that I was even, I freely admitted it, but he swears to this very day he didn't put the li'l fellow in my bucket. Thereafter he blamed me for years of lousy radio reception. I told him he should have saved the ball.

In retrospect, that is possible, that the poor mouse was only incredibly thirsty and fell in and drowned.

Wes
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