Have you ever heard radio in your teeth?

[vwestlife]

I used to have a fax machine that would pick up shortwave radio signals at night through its handset, even with the hook switch pressed down. And yesterday I was listening to a mixtape someone made in the '70s, and in the middle of it I could hear a few CB radio transmissions, ending with "10-4". (And no, it wasn't "Convoy" playing on the tape!)

 

[Nabnassett]

I've heard about the tooth radio but I've never experienced it. Still waiting though.

I used to have a fender telecaster guitar that I'd run into a vintage 1965 fender princeton reverb amplifier. On clear nights, especially in winter I'd pick up what I'd guess was shortwave through the amp. Only worked with that guitar/amplifier combination.

I'm not sure if it was the rotation on the earth or what but in the course of an hour the broadcasts would change a half dozen times, always in a different languages I couldn't understand.

My brother was visiting one night when it was happening and it kinda freaked him to the point that he wanted me to shut it off. Pretty sure he thought it was some kind of poltergeist thing.

 

[Quadman2]

There's a couple of genres that put my teeth on edge...not in a good way!

Does that count?


Q

 

[Lavane]

For a couple of years I crashed on a futon in the living room of a couple of my friends in Seattle. I just had the mattress and would roll it up in the morning. We lived in an apartment on Aloha at the bottom of Queen Anne. There were several radio and TV towers at the top of the hill. My head was fairly close to our television and I would hear voices at night. While certainly not as crazy as hearing radio in your teeth, it was driving me nuts. And, my apartment mates thought I was nuts. Finally, figured out that if I unplugged the TV from the wall it would stop and I could sleep.
I bought a phone with a 10 number memory. It was useless from all the radio/TV it would pick up. I tried all sorts of filters on the line and still had the problem. We went back to the red princess phone we had inherited from one of our friends from San Diego -- no whispery voices, but had to go back to dialing our favorites the old fashioned way. Used the other phone after moving and worked fine.

So, I could easily believe a small number of people could pick up radio on their dental work. Gilligan proves the point.

My father had a HAM radio setup with a 100' telescoping tower with antenna.
The people that moved in next door had a young son that had a portable cassette recorder. It would pickup my father's transmissions and come through the speaker of the cassette recorder. Even with the power off and unplugged. The poor kid thought it was haunted. The parents were a bit freaked out as well I found out. Once it was all explained, the kid thought it was kind of cool.

 

[init4fun]

When I was young the radio station WMEX in Quincy Ma. used to play through the end of cycle buzzer in the clothes dryer. WMEX's antenna was about 1/4 mile from my parent's house.

A little blurb about WMEX from wiki;

"In 1957, the New England Radio Corporation sold WMEX to the Richmond brothers. One of the brothers, Max Richmond changed the format of WMEX to a rock-and-roll-dominant pop-music format (among the first in the nation) and hired popular disc jockey Arnie Ginsburg away from smaller station WBOS (now WUNR). The hit format lasted from 1957 until March 1975. Max Richmond was reportedly a challenge to work for, with his alleged micromanaging and abrasive personality, yet none can deny his uncanny ability to spot DJ talent, and to keep his station—despite a poor nighttime signal in many suburban locations—a major player and innovator for many years."

 

[CalvinBeck]

This is turning out to be an entertaining thread. From what you all have been describing about AM signals it makes me wonder if what I heard through my PN junction molars was just that. But I could have sworn it was a local FM station that identified itself.

 

[Mr.White]

I hear Albert Ayler solos out my azz sometimes when I eat baked beans washed down with Heineken.

 

[Uncle Fester]

I read that in the 1920's am broadcasts were much stronger, and it was not unheard of to hear radio broadcasts through barbed wire fences, empty metal pails, and yes, metal fillings.

There is a powerful am broadcast station in a seaside town near me, and years ago people who lived in close proximity could hear talk shows and commercials in their walls.

The signal was resonating with their house wiring....they thought they were hearing things.

 

[CalvinBeck]

It was a bit of a sensory-bending experience. I sort of "felt" (through a slight vibration in the affected teeth) and heard the signal at the same time. Kind of like smelling a color.

 

[grillebilly]

Guy I worked with told me he and some friends were playing and they found a cigarette butt playing a nearby radio station. Back then there was a brand that had charcoal filters. When they finally discovered where the sound was coming from, they touched the butt (not each other's, silly) and it quit.

 

[Pio1980]

WLW had its own substation to power that 500kW monster. Even with that, lights in the nearby town of Mason would dim along with the modulation. Think of it: Plate-modulated w/about 30% efificiency...that would mean an input of about 1.5 MEGAWATTS to get 500kW into that big stick...which is still in use. (Not the 500kW transmitter...although it remains on site since it's essentially part of the transmitter building. A more modern 50kW rig does the duty nowadays)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLW#:~:text=WLW's 500,000-watt "RCA 1,the regular 50 kW transmitter.

http://j-hawkins.com/wlw.shtml

 

[David_NC]

I used to have quite a bit of metal in my mouth and always thought it'd be cool to pick up radio that way. I never did, however. Now, there's no chance of it; all the metal has been replaced with composites of some sort...

 

[bluesky]

Aliens

 

[hugo454]

I heard classical violin once in the middle of the night. That was the last time I took LSD.

 

[electronjohn]

I read that in the 1920's am broadcasts were much stronger, and it was not unheard of to hear radio broadcasts through barbed wire fences, empty metal pails, and yes, metal fillings.

There is a powerful am broadcast station in a seaside town near me, and years ago people who lived in close proximity could hear talk shows and commercials in their walls.

The signal was resonating with their house wiring....they thought they were hearing things.

Back in the 20s there were relatively few stations on the air, so interference was far lower. That, and much less man-made interference. There's a number of factors affecting poor AM reception...two of them being: Deterioration of AM transmitter sites and MUCH more man-made interference. An AM station using a conventional series-fed antenna actually has two components to the antenna system: the tower itself and the ground system. The tower's easy enough to maintain, but the ground system itself has a LOT of copper. Most that I'm familiar with had 120 radials equal to the tower height...all tied together at their ends with a "ring" of copper. That's a lot of copper...and it either deteriorates or is a tempting target for thieves. Regardless, maintenance of the ground system can be an expensive proposition. Another factor is the prevalence of switch-mode power supplies. Efficient? Yes...but also excellent producers of a lot of wide-band hash that will wreak havoc with AN reception. Add LED bulbs and the few remaining CFLs in use and you have a real RF soup in the air.