Anyone ever notice this?

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mcclary's electrical

Senior Member
Location
VA
Anyone ever noticed this? While using a Fluke Toner, every once in a while you'll tone a wire that is carrying an RF frequency. (allows you to have a radio with you in an attic!) I suppose it depends on toning a wire that is the right lenght for a certain frequency. Like a di-pole antenna for ham radio. They are made from a certain length of wire. Has anyone listened to the radio thru a toner?
 

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
Any nonlinear electronic device can detect an AM radio signal and convert it back to the original audio signal (or at least a crude replica of the original signal.)

Add a speaker, and ta-da: you have an AM radio. So any device with a speaker and diode or transistor can work as a radio, if it gets a strong enough signal.

I remember when I was a kid, we had a neighbor with a CB radio (and an illegeal booster). His voice would come blaring out of my sisters stereo even when the power was turned off. That was enough to make me jump out of my skin the first time I heard it. If the voice hadn't been so familiar, I probably would have thought it was a ghost. Well, that & the fact that not many ghosts say "10-4 good buddy".

Steve
 

lakee911

Senior Member
Location
Columbus, OH
I've noticed that ... for some reason I seem to remember being able to pick up conversations on telephone lines or music on speaker lines, but I could just be making that up because it has been a long time since I've used one.
 

glene77is

Senior Member
Location
Memphis, TN
McClary,

Yes. In designing and installing a Faraday sheild room, to prevent RF from entering my designed instrumentation amps, we found that we could pick up 3 different AM stations.

By switching the EGC from (1) the Primary Panel EGC, (2) to the conduit locally, (3) to the #4 cu EGC directly down to a 10' ground rod, we could pick (emphasize) any one of the stations.

Since I designed and built the array of amps, I resorted to such things as a powered ground plane reference, cut-wire equipotential connected plane, ferrite beads on all entry points, and chicken-wire around the entire assembly. Still had the radio and then built the R.F. proof room.

The cure was to use the Faraday Sheild Room, which was almost R.F. proof. If we opened the read door 3 inches, then one of the stations was picked up by my amps.

Enjoy the music !
 

glene77is

Senior Member
Location
Memphis, TN
I've noticed that ... for some reason I seem to remember being able to pick up conversations on telephone lines or music on speaker lines, but I could just be making that up because it has been a long time since I've used one.

Lakee,

This thread is getting to be fun.
It reminds me of what used to be.

When I was a kid, 1959,
I worked with Smith & Keene Electric, Virginia Beach, VA.
Look them up on the intenet, they have a large shop.

So, We would ring-out with a a 9V battery and a 'buzzer'.
f the run was 200' one way,
then the buzzer might not energize due to Voltage Drop.

I obtained a 6 transistor radio (rare in those days),
powered it with a 6Volt lantern battery
and piped 'MUSIC' audio through the system,
and connected a sensitive cone loudspeaker in series.

We were able to listen for the weak MUSIC audio signal
and trace the circuit (to mark panels).
The buzzer would quit when the VD was bad,
but the weak audio signal could be detected by our ears.

It worked best on the country music station,
lots of beat and twang!
Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, Tex Ritter, Max Weisman !

Enjoy the music while your ears are still good!
:)
 

hockeyoligist2

Senior Member
I had a strange experience back in the late sixty's, no drugs involved. LOL I had an AM radio from a 68' Camaro under my bed. I was going to put it in a 67'. I woke up and heard music. I searched around trying to find the source. It was coming from the radio under my bed! No power, no speakers! It would do it every night for about a week, it stopped when I put it in the 67'........... I still don't understand how this happened.
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Did anyone ever make or play with the Boy Scouts radio's ???

My Father and Brother built one, and I got the Hand me down :)

MO
We all seem to forget (from time to time) that our work is with-in the Electromagnitic Spectrem!

:roll:
 

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
I had a strange experience back in the late sixty's, no drugs involved. LOL I had an AM radio from a 68' Camaro under my bed. I was going to put it in a 67'. I woke up and heard music. I searched around trying to find the source. It was coming from the radio under my bed! No power, no speakers! It would do it every night for about a week, it stopped when I put it in the 67'........... I still don't understand how this happened.


"They're back!!" :grin:

But really, no speakers??? Are you sure you wern't dreaming that you already had it installed and your were crusin' down the road listening to tunes?? :)
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Larry,

YES, included in the group,
but NO they don't count numbers.
Okay, enough with the wise jokes! (I don't like the competition. :grin:)

I built my first crystal radio from a library book about WWI or II POW's making radios from what they had available. Instead of a diode, the detector was made from a blue razor blade and a pencil lead. I was in the first or second grade when I did that.
 
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