Unusual tuner problem!

[Chazb11]

I went out on a limb and bought a Rotel tuner with a dead display. The previous owner claimed the tuner worked fine other than the display being out and that it could be tuned "blindly". I figured I could replace the display easy enough but lucked out and found it was only a bad connection!
So I quickly hook it up to my test system without an antenna to give it a whirl. I had to put it in mono to pull in my favorite station but all seemed well so far.
Now I hook up an old dipole antenna and try again in stereo mode. I've got excellent signal strength now but the left channel is barely playing! #@&%!!! I went through all this and now it has a dead channel?
I know my test system is ok so I try another station, then another, then another. They all come in fine with both channels playing normally.
So I call my favorite radio station and ask the DJ why they are broadcasting only the right channel. "Oops!" he says "thanks a lot!"

 

[thunderroad]

Great posting! :thmbsp: Man, don't you just HATE that!? I do the same thing! I ALWAYS assume the problem is mine until I can prove that it's not, so similar things have happened to me. Thanks for starting my day with a laugh!

 

[saltwater]

Wonder how the people with their 5.1 setup feel? Think they notice?

 

[Paul C]

One local R&B station does that, drops the left channel as often as not. I had the same panic as you had, only to find out it was the station, not my tuner.

I have a record that warns you not to worry about the bass rattle you hear on the first track, that it is how the African drum sounds. That rattle is in the drum, not the speakers.

I had a bad rattle while listening to some Booker T and the MG's. Tore my speakers apart only to find that the rattle was actually Donald "Duck" Dunn's bass amp rattling in the recording studio.

That is the kind of thing that can drive a perfectly normal person insane.

 

[Yankee Dog]

Funny story, had a similiar experience recently:

I've been messing with an old Nikko receiver, and finally got it up and running after major transplant surgury (swapped a regulator board, capacitor or two, and some transistors).

This unit was idle for years, and once I got it up and running, I kept watching it as I listened to it, expecting something to either smoke, blow up, or stop working (first time I ever did any project like this).

So after a few hours, I am feeling fairly confident that everything is OK, then all of a sudden the left channel starts to cut in and out. Oh chit! Man I thought I was out of the woods. That feeling started to come over me! Then, trying to remain cool, I tuned to another station, and TA DA!, all was well.

Same thing, it was the radio station! Finally caught a break. YD

 

[Paul C]

So, what is it about the way FM works that this is always the left channel?

 

[Yankee Dog]

I was thinking the same thing when I posted my reply!