Sudden horrible static and subaudible tone

[W5EBC]

I am an officer in a small ham radio club in northeast Texas (Red River Valley Amateur Radio Club) and a couple of years ago I paired a dedicated Yaesu FTM-400 speaker out to the microphone in port on a dedicated computer and non-amateur radio operators have been able to listen to it well for years. Suddenly, horrible static and a subaudible tone have gotten so bad that it is completely unusable. I have tried various settings in the RadioFeed program and for the sound card to no avail. Last week I disabled the onboard sound card, installed a SABRENT USB External Stereo Sound Adapter for Windows and Mac. Plug and Play No Drivers Needed. (AU-MMSA) and Smof Upgraded Ground Loop Noise Isolator, Noise Filter for Car Audio/Home Stereo System (Eliminate The Buzzing Noise Completely) with 3.5mm Audio Cable, with zero change. Listening via the Broadcastify app the noise even exists when the cable is completely unplugged from the computer, so it is not from the Yaesu or cable. We even installed a two-pronged adapter on the computer power cord to try and isolate a ground issue. All to no avail.

If the noise is not from the radio source, the source feed connection cable or the sound card, where could the problem be from? Has there been a recent update to the RadioFeed program that maybe caused the problem? Is there any way to do a kind of a "factory reset" to the RadioFeed application, but one which will keep my Broadcastify account information? Any suggestions at all would be very welcome. Two guys have now worked probably 4-5 man hours trying to troubleshoot the problem to no avail.

Phillip Beall (W5EBC)

 

[DC31]

One troubleshooting step that I have found useful is to plug your 3.5mm audio cable into the earbud jack on an iPhone (or whatever) and attempt to stream music from the phone to your bcfy feed. The audio from the phone is generally crystal clear. If you are still getting the static that really points to either your cable or the computer.

 

[W5EBC]

Already confirmed it isn’t the cable. The hideous noise is still present with the cable completely unplugged. Already ruled out:

Yaesu radio source
Computer ground
Microphone/line in cable
Sound card

No help - inline filter

To me it seems the only possibilities are an issue with the computer, like a noisy power supply, or the RadioFeed application.

If nothing nobody offers any viable solutions by next week I’ll swap in a temporary substitute computer…

 

[DC31]

I find that I get noise with cable unplugged. Try the phone source.

My experience also has been that simple is better. Use the cheapest usb sound card you can find and an old raspberry pi and it may work for years. the more elaborate sound cards are overkill. You aren't going to get Dolby surround sound from a mono audio source like a scanner or radio. All they do is introduce many more variables that can screw things up.

Let me know if you would like me to supply you with an old pi all set up to stream. Literally plug and play.