In case anyone is wondering if I have to endure such loud noise, I don’t.

To help with my sanity (as well as my family’s), I decided to quickly put together an external loudspeaker out of some spare components from my drawer.

• an LM386 audio amplifier
• a speaker with 8-ohm and 1 watt, similar to the rig’s
• LM7812 linear regulator with 12 volt output, just in case, since I’m using the same power supply as my rig
• supporting passives
• 10k ohm potentiometer to control the volume — this is important, since the static noise always comes at the rig’s maximum volume

To ensure that I’d able to catch the issue without being driven crazy, I tuned the external speaker to the minimum volume where I could hear it by turning the rig’s volume all the way up and turning off the squelch with the radio on, simulating the loud static.

I then turned the radio off, still connected to the running DC power and the external speaker. Within a couple minutes, the whole contraption performed exactly like I hoped for, and thus, I was able to sanely conduct my investigation.