Blocking out cell phone interference

[BreckerFan]

I recently moved to a building across the street from a cell tower and I'm getting horrible interference through my amps and even through my studio monitors. I can directly see the tower through my window. Are there any strategies anyone has used to block these kinds of signals? At times it's making my gear almost unusable.

[frankhond]

Are you sure it’s the cell tower and not the grounding in the building? Cell towers are everywhere these days and there is often one close to you even if you can’t see it. And grounding issues are not uncommon. Try to eliminate ground loops first, test with and without grounding, test to ground to a radiator or similar etc.

Also if you are plugged into a computer, check that it’s properly grounded too. My laptop causes horrible buzz if it’s not grounded.

[BreckerFan]

Yeah im pretty sure, it sounds like if you set a cellphone down on top of a tube amp but significantly louder. And we're on the top floor of our building, basically eye level with the tower. Probably about 50 feet away.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

The club in which I play twice a week has a cell tower directly outside the window at the back side of the stage. The noise through some amps (including the house system) is sometimes a problem. And it's constant through poorly shielded guitars. The sound of Fender is right at home on our stage - single coils are noisy enough to hear through the music. But there's almost no noise from good, well installed humbuckers and it's much less prominent on Strats with the 5 way switch in position 2 or 4 (as you'd expect). My active EMG and the Lace Alumitones in my Tele are close to silent - there's very faint hissing and buzzing with the volume all the way up when the tower is handling a lot of calls.

We've suggested that offenders line their pickup and control cavities with copper foil and ground it. This has helped several. The pots in my Ibanez AF207 came fully wrapped with shielding foil grounded to the cases. So there's a lot you can do if the noise is getting in through your guitars. I put a Benedetto B7 in it with a coil splitter, and it's a bit noisy on single coil with the volume pot all the way up.

If you're getting noise with no guitar connected to your amps and the same noise is in your monitors, it's probably being induced in your power line. This could be building-wide or it could be local to you because of the location of your apartment. Either way, if it's coming in through your power line, you may benefit from a power line filter or "cleaner". I've never used any, so I can't recommend one - but many audiophiles think they're worth the cost.