help with old De Armond soundhole pickup

[mossman]

i just got ahold of one of the old DeArmond 210 soundhole pickups. the cable was pretty cracked up so i decided to remove it, clean the pickup a bit and reattach a new cable with a 1/4" plug instead of the jack. the issue i have is that the pickup is making a pretty bad humming/buzzing sound which totally goes away if i touch my finger to the pickup. the cable i used was one i had laying around from another project. could that be the issue. any ideas?

[ranchtooth]

Sounds like a ground thing...
Is the cable unshielded? Is the pickup case connected to ground properly?

Thats all i got...

[spud1950]

Those are cool old pickups and very collectible. Is it similar to this one?

cgi.ebay.com/1960s-DeArmond-pickup-for-acoustic-guitar-vintage-part_W0QQitemZ290182130954QQihZ019QQcategoryZ22670QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Anyway, from your description of the symptoms, it sounds like you may have the hot and ground wires of the cable to the pickup reversed.The same thing happens when one wires their output jack backwards on an electric guitar.Because the wires are reversed,there's no ground going to where a ground is needed and you get a bad buzzing. Switch them around and see if that cures the problem.