Hear radio station in background - Anyone else?

[awara]

I have been using Obi 200 since Nov last year. Setup GV and then CC a few months later for the 911 service. Everything works well.

I have noticed something odd over the past few weeks. When I receive/make a call, I hear audio of a radio station playing in the background. Did not spend time to figure out which station it is. The other party does not hear anything, just me. And I think it is a local radio station as the commercial announcements reference nearby locations and/or announce phone numbers with local area codes. Just this evening, I was hearing part of the Dan Patrick show and then commercial for Fox Sports and then something about Iowa State basketball and firing of Atlanta Hawks head coach.

And to be clear, both callers do not have any radio turned on. And I am the only one who hears it. The other party shared that they did not hear anything. This has been the case when the other party is on a cell phone (family member today) or on a business line such as my doctor office (two weeks ago) or my employer's HR benefits center (three weeks ago).

Really odd. Anyone experienced something similar? Where does one even start trouble shooting something like this?

[Sheffield_Steve]

Move the Obi to a different location and see if it stops

[drgeoff]

Try another phone.

[Lavarock7]

Decades ago I worked in AM radio. A listener was using a reel to reel tape recorder with an un-grounded mike (or aux) wire which picked up the AM signal and it was demodulated.

My bet, something along your chain is un-grounded and is picking up a local AM broadcast tower nearby. I have seen it on regular landline telephone lines.

Radio and television stations in the U.S, identify themselves at various times but always at the top of the hour.
The phone company oftentimes had filters for landline, but if you are not using one, then you have to investigate yourself. When this happens, can you move your hand around each item, OBI, cordless phone, etc to see if the signal increases ort decreases. The item you touch may well be the culprit.

The cure can be something as simple as a ground wire or a capacitor to shunt the signal to ground.

You might look to a local "Ham" amateur radio operator for help (not that it is their fault, but they are great at looking fo this type of thing).

[N7AS]

I remember almost 70 years ago that I purchased a 3 tube amplifier. (35Z5, 50L6, and I think a 12BY7) No power transformer as it was direct to a 120V plug. Sometimes the chassis was hot. That's where I learned electricity can bite. I connected about 50 feet of twisted 2 conductor cable to another speaker. I was trying to construct an intercom. Well at my age (7 years old) I didn't know too much about matching impedances and heard some music and talking. I was listening to the local AM radio station. I learned to solder at 6 years of age.

For those young people who don't know what a tube is, it's like a transistor that is enclosed in glass that gets hot to the touch.

[awara]

Thanks, Lavarock7. Not sure where to start with the grounding but will poke around to see what's going on. The radio is sporadic but getting more frequent. See attached sample recording which ends with the dreaded white noise when phone is answered. May need to turn up the volume to hear the radio in the background.

Radio + White Noise is painful enough but lately, GV has started to record calls by itself. Really random but really embarrassing to hear the GV alert about call being recorded in the middle of a conversation. If I do not know better, I would speculate that the Obi200 is possessed. Is it just my luck? Or has anyone else experienced this joy? If you did, what helped eliminate it or atleast reduce the issue?

Decades ago I worked in AM radio. A listener was using a reel to reel tape recorder with an un-grounded mike (or aux) wire which picked up the AM signal and it was demodulated.

My bet, something along your chain is un-grounded and is picking up a local AM broadcast tower nearby. I have seen it on regular landline telephone lines.

Radio and television stations in the U.S, identify themselves at various times but always at the top of the hour.
The phone company oftentimes had filters for landline, but if you are not using one, then you have to investigate yourself. When this happens, can you move your hand around each item, OBI, cordless phone, etc to see if the signal increases ort decreases. The item you touch may well be the culprit.

The cure can be something as simple as a ground wire or a capacitor to shunt the signal to ground.

You might look to a local "Ham" amateur radio operator for help (not that it is their fault, but they are great at looking fo this type of thing).

[SteveInWA]

Well, have you tried any of the troubleshooting steps already described to you?

As Lavarock7 pointed out, this is AM broadcast radio being picked up by the equipment or wiring you are using.  It is not that hard to find the problem.

If you plugged your OBi's Phone port into your house telephone wiring, unplug it, and directly plug in a different, ordinary corded telephone to the back of the OBi.  If the interference goes away, your problem is in the house wiring.  Unplug that phone, and then plug in whatever other phone you were using, if it was different.  Does the interference come back?  If so, it's that phone.

If neither of those things helped, and moving the OBi device to a different location doesn't help, then you may have a bad power supply (wall wart) on the OBi.

This power supply works fine, and it has an interference-absorbing toroid attached to the cord:

https://www.amazon.com/Chanzon-Switching-Adapter-100-240V-Transformer/dp/B07HNL5D56

You can also try one of these, or one of the other similar products on the listing page:

https://www.amazon.com/Philmore-Phone-Line-RF-Filter/dp/B004FVGIO2

If you or someone you know has any DSL filters laying around, you can try adding one of those, instead.