[LinuxBender]

I've sat next to an FCC officer whilst operating just above and just below citizens band. He was more curious than anything about our local CB group. This may no longer be the case but at the time they didn't really care about people doing their own thing unless they were interfering with a business or any other revenue impacting shenanigans. We were careful to not interfere. Well, most of us. One of us could be heard through ceiling fans, toasters, light bulbs, TV's but he rarely spoke. We noticed that the FCC would make an example of an extreme clown about once a month and it would get published in a magazine but they always left us alone I think in part because we all used nice gear and only operated with the power required to get the job done. We would only step it up when someone was trying to clobber the truck drivers.

[rpcope1]

That still seems to be the case. If you tune into some shortwave bands between 6 and 7 MHz where there never seems to be any commercial traffic, there's still regular pirate broadcasts inside of the US (I think it's a neat hobby for a lot of people -- I certainly like listening). I'm sure if really pressed the FCC would do something about it, but short of extreme abuse they don't seem to do much outside of occasional spurts of cracking down (unless you're operating in the FM bands, or otherwise impacting commercial or military comms).

Probably the quickest way to get the FCC hunting you down, now that I think about it, outside of irritating a commercial or mil operator, is to draw the ire of hams, some of whom, so far as I can tell, will go to the ends of the earth to stop you/ruin your day if you give them reason.

[lifeisstillgood]

Wait what. "could be heard through light bulbs and ceiling fans"?!

[LinuxBender]

Yup. Even though he had a nice President series radio, he was driving the amp too hard and his beam antenna was aligned to skip to the south-east of the US which happened to align with the 15KV lines. He liked to occasionally talk smack to the guys in the Louisiana swamp lands. I guess one could say that was an old school troll.

[salad-tycoon]

> yup.

So obviously fans don’t have speakers or Alexa in them, I think.

How does this work for things without speakers to produce sounds? You hear sounds from the motor/wiring?

I never even imagined this was a thing.

[LinuxBender]

So obviously fans don’t have speakers or Alexa in them, I think.

At the time the internet was just a slow link between a few colleges and nobody had cell phones so I tend to agree.

You hear sounds from the motor/wiring?

I honestly don't know. The only induced reactions I can explain are when the truckers running powerful RF linear amps could partially illuminate the fluorescent lights at trucks stops. But I have no idea how he managed to induce not only enough signal to make noise but to also somewhat hear his voice. It was very "tinny" and raspy sounding. The more I think about it the sound was similar to what one might hear if they had two cups connected by string and someone was screaming into it.

[joecool1029]

Couple years ago I was driving down the highway and got within a few hundred meters of a guy who was no doubt shooting skip on CB (skipping the ionosphere to work hundreds of miles away). The signal was powerful enough that when he keyed on his taillights would almost shut off and I could hear him through the cassette adapter in my car.

[13of40]

Back when modems were a thing, I spent some time living at a friend's house, and shortly after I moved my computer in I started hearing voices. Very faint, but the content was ominous fire and brimstone stuff. I thought I was losing my mind, but I hunted around and they were coming from the computer. Apparently the phone line was acting like an antenna and picking up some religious AM radio show, and playing it through the modem's speaker.

[BeFlatXIII]

I used to have that happen to my speakers picking up my university's radio station when they were powered on and nothing was playing.

[aksss]

I’ve heard it’s possible to anonymously fry people’s systems with annoyingly loud bass this way. Urban legend?

[joecool1029]

> Urban legend?

Likely, we had a thread on HN a few years back that just turned out to be IR remote disabling speakers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28817683 .

However there are some 'jammer' type technologies used to temporarily disable cars and UAV's by causing the chips to overload and makes the ECM crash on most cars. It doesn't fry them: https://www.teledyne-e2v.com/en/solutions/rf-power/rf-soluti... and an article on it https://www.police1.com/police-products/pursuit-management-t...

[nemo44x]

I picked up radio on an old metal dental filling back in the day. Was enough to subtly vibrate it and make it audible to me in my bedroom when it was quiet.

[sgtnoodle]

It's not bas extreme as a filling, but I've encountered several accidental radio receivers over the years. A solar powered race car I worked on had a problem with going to 100% throttle whenever someone transmitted on a handheld radio nearby. A stereo audio pre-amp I built from a kit would readily pick up AM stations. When I first visited my in-laws home, I discovered that their subwoofer was preaching evangelical gospel.

[squeaky-clean]

I've got a few guitar distortion pedals that can pick up AM when the knobs are in a certain position. It's fun to turn it on in between songs at a gig when we're checking our tuning.

[vhcr]

The MythBusters did an episode on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2003_season)#Radi...

> The gold and amalgam tooth fillings did not act as an antenna or point-contact transistor when placed in a real human skull. Explanations for the supposed Morse code pickup included a Galvanic cell reaction between two teeth fillings and saliva.

> This myth was first claimed by Lucille Ball in an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, with the fillings explanation offered by Buster Keaton.

[nemo44x]

A couple things on this:

Myth Busters was great. But for some of their tests you need to keep in mind they built a model with limitations (such as their assumptions) and tried to replicate a claim. In certain cases they were unable to replicate either due to an incomplete model or trying to replicate something that was never published as science in the first place. In their case the endless shape and size of fillings, location, signal frequency and strength, other things that could amplify, etc.

I know it happened because it happened to me once. With a sound mind, unencumbered by substance, and able to test. I could never replicate outside of the one time. But during that time if I moved my head one way (I assume my saliva and contents of it moving) it would go away. Moving it back, the sound was clear. Very tinny, vibrational if that makes sense, but there. Coming from the inside. I remember the weather from that day even as it was such a weird thing.

But I could never replicate.

They are right in saying they could not replicate. But it’s theoretically possible to create a semiconductor with saliva solution and a filling and pick up a strong enough signal in a certain position.