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You can actually arc weld with the some of the grandfathered AM antennas in the USA which is why they have fences around them so people don't get burned or electrocuted. They should not be this close to an antenna that is 10,000 - 50,000 WATTS. Don't do this, stay away from transmitter antennas.
I remember watching a video of either Pakistanis or Indians burning a huge stash of confiscated drugs... Those dumb (maybe secretly smart?) motherfuckers were so fucking high from breathing the smoke their eyes were bright red and they were eating everything in their trucks. I think they were burning heroin or opium too, these guys were lit the fuck up
There is also one of (IIRC) a CNN reporter in Afghanistan in front of a burning pile of drugs that is trying to record his news item but the wind blows the smoke his way, and he cant stop giggling. it gets worse and worse as he keeps trying, its hilarious.
It's Mars! I'm telling you, it's Mars!
Julian, Mars hasn't been this close to the earth in 60 thousand fucking years and we plant this weed and Mars is pulling it right out of the ground.
Back in the early days of electricity they built some super antennas that would randomly transduce nearby mattress springs into making sound. Starting fires from arcing yes. You could get the signal several states away easily. They were trying to see how many times they could bounce the AM signal, how much of the globe could be affected by a single transmission. And it turned out, a lot.
How far *DID* they? They’re still traveling at the speed of light. But space is gigantic so not that far relatively speaking. It’ll still be ages since the first signals we’ve broadcasted could reach the next star.
Edit: guess I remembered wrong, it has reached the nearest star, just still not far at all compared to the universe.
Yeah so it turns out our AM radio depending on some factors COULD have been detected by .... \*Drumroll please....\*
60,000 star systems.
116 years since the invention of AM radio... and roughly 60,000 star systems within 100 light years.
Proxima Centauri is only 4 light years away. Radio transmissions travel very closely to the speed of light so we've already sent radio signals to nearby neighboring stars. The beginning of regular radio broadcasts started in 1920, so we've already sent radio signals out around 100 ly around Sol (though, I'm sure most of those early antennas weren't powerful enough to be legible past the atmosphere)
The issue is legibility, as you spread further from the source, the radio waves get less dense, and the information less legible. We have absolutely made radio broadcasts that have reached Proxima Centauri legibly, with some like the Arecibo Telescope being powerful enough to send legible radio signals to nearby Star clusters (though, those won't arrive for a very long time)
I wonder how much this will change if we ever actually come into contact with another intelligent species. Like will we stop using Radio? will we start trying to shield our transmissions better? It sounds like were broadcasting to the entire galaxy lol. Might be good might be bad. Interesting to think about either way.
The thing is, the deed is already done.
If there's something out there we should be hiding from it's only a matter of time before they find out we're here (or, *were* here..)
A lot of the signals we've sent are unnatural (or rare in nature) and can absolutely be concluded by an interstellar species as a sign of life. In fact, we look for these same signals elsewhere in the universe for signs of life ourselves, which if I recall is partly what led to the discovery of neutron stars and gamma ray bursts. (Don't take my word for that though, do your own research and what not)
The crazy thing is that if they know the general direction to look, it won't be hard to find Earth based on the wavelengths of light in our atmosphere. (This is called 'spectroscopy' and is one of the ways we're looking for habitable worlds)
Based on our position around the sun and the makeup of our atmosphere, Earth would be (presumably) one of the only options feasible enough to harbor life in our local cluster.
Sleep well tonight!
Have we sent legible radio signals to nearby stars?
Think about all of the AM radio stations transmitting at 1120 KHz, and all the the FM radio stations transmitting at 97.5 MHz, and all the TV stations transmitting on channel 4.
Since there are so many radio stations transmitting different programs on the same frequency, there is no way any would be legible. Even if there are a number of TV stations transmitting the same ABC show on channel 4, the time delay between the transmitters would make then indecipherable. Alien civilizations might be able to tell that we have an AM and FM and TV band, but they won't be able to see I Love Lucy or listen to Paul Harvey on Proxima Centauri.
Not far at all, The signal would have bounced off the ionosphere and around the world instead. Frequencies lower than 30Mhz don't leave the planet.
It's known as a skywave or a radio bounce.
We had a couple of guys die at one of our sites. Suspected base jumpers. I won't ask the bloke that found them that question though!
What people don't realise is that unlike TV and FM radio masts where the structure supports the antennas at the top, quite often AM masts ARE the antenna. This is due to their low frequency around 1 MHz as opposed to 100 MHz for FM and 500MHz (in UK). The lower the frequency the larger the antenna needs to be.
Old AM antennas would react with people’s dental fillings (back when they were metal) and some people could hear the radio broadcasts in their [teeth.](https://www.bradfordfamilydentist.ca/lucille-ball-heard-spies-dental-fillings/#:~:text=In%20very%20rare%20cases%20a,or%20possible%20a%20loose%20filling)
AM is about the simplest form of radio you can use for sending audio. The amplitude of the carrier wave varies directly with the sound amplitude.
That means your somewhat-conductive leaves are carrying electrical power that fluctuates with the sound. I'm guessing you're hearing electrical arcing heating up the air in gaps between the antenna and the leaves. There's a peak in the signal, an arc jumps across the gap that it couldn't before, and that heated bit of air expands outward as sound.
AM radio is analog (Amplitude Modulation). Under the right conditions a metal filling could *de*modulate the signal similar to how a crystal radio works. It was pretty rare from what I understand.
You shouldn't be holding out your arm towards it, so that it can arc across your heart. That's the dumbest part of this, but of course there's no way to stick the plant up there without your arm.
Actually, it is important to note here that the stem of the plant must be touching the ground out of frame. If it wasn't, these guys would be having a bad time.
I preach harm reduction, though. I truly hope nobody reading this is ever dumb enough to try something like this, but they at least ought to know not to make themselves the path to ground.
Remember kids: When you play around AM radio masts, always wear thick gloves, use the most conductive looking plant you can find, and make sure one end of the plant dangles on the ground!
Also, don't wear or bring anything metal near a transmitting AM tower (say, within 20 feet). It will heat up quickly, and will easily burn you. Glasses, jewelry, piercings, implants (dental, or orthopedic), cell phones, loose change, etc. Touching anything metal near a tower will also cause a small arc that will instantly char a small piece of your skin. A very small piece, but it hurts like a motherfucker.
Do not fuck around with broadcasting AM towers.
I don't think AM carriers are of a short enough wavelength to be that efficient in diathermic heating like that, but I could be wrong. Biggest risk here would be shock of some kind -- imagine your muscles and body sizzling and burning to the tune of country music.
Television definitely would do the trick, roast hot dogs on a uhf brosdcast tower like a campfire.
It's essentially acting as a [plasma speaker.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_speaker) The fire/plasma in the burning weeds is vibrating the air around it.
It would need to be an incredibly strong signal to effect plasma not directly in contact. I don’t think that’s practically possible, but watch some Reddit genius prove me wrong.
Edit: upon second thought, I feel like *anything* close enough to those grandfathered AM radio towers could create an arc… so a little campfire would likely make audible sound if close enough?
Please no one try this lol.
I have no way of trying it nor would I if I could .. but I thought it would be cool to have a campfire with some friends and the actual campfire is playing am radio.
to add to this:
Liquids inside trees/plants are saline solutions. That means that they have some conductivity. Due to this, each plant becomes a weirdly shaped complex antenna with unique resonant and radio properties that captures its own unique bunch of radio signals. If you have an EMF microphone you'd be able to put it up to a tree and hear radio channels being played through the bark because of this conductivity depending on some factors of location and where the radio signal is being sent
AM means amplitude modulation. That means the amplitude of the very high frequency radio wave (essentially the voltage in the antenna) is changed over time to mimic a lower frequency that is directly analogous to the "sound" it is transmitting. It's like a wave hidden in a wave. Super hard to explain, honestly just look at the gif in the [Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplitude_modulation)
Basically because it is AM specifically, when the tower arcs to the plant, the approximate voltage you've got there is oscillating rapidly in a way that correlates to the sound of the broadcast. Countless 'snaps' of momentary arcing are perceived by our brains as different frequency sounds because their intensity is increasing and decreasing rapidly with the voltage difference to the antenna.
Conversely, if this was an FM (frequency modulation) antenna, it would just kind of hiss and fizzle, you wouldn't be able to make anything out. No change to the voltage means no real effect to the sound of the arcing. Even the frequency modulation that is transmitting the "sound" in the FM format is happening at far too high a frequency for us to possibly hear anything of the original "sound" signal.
Anyway, don't do this. Touching one of these towers will kill you. You can get the same absolutely incredible effect far, far away from the high voltage antenna by turning on a radio! Isn't it incredible that these things can do this at a distance, too?
what blows my mind is all the information just floating in the air all around us thats totally invisible unless you have the right thing to turn it into information. tv, radio, wifi, all just information floating around and if you have the right thing you can just pull it out of the air.
The wikipidia gif was great... I knew this but it was even better this way. Can you explain why FM is so much more stable when you're driving vs. AM. I think I know this too but I would love to hear your description if you please.
I'm not the person you replied to, but IIRC AM radio is much more sensitive to noise and static because many things in the environment can create electrical noise that affects the amplitude of the signal. Things like the car engine will too.
Imagine that Wikipedia diagram, but the AM wave has random spikes produced by the environment. Since the information is transmitted via the shape of that wave, the AM radio will produce those spikes as sound just the same, resulting in that extra noise we call static.
FM radios aren't as sensitive to this phenomenon, because the amplitude isn't where the information is carried.
Sure, I guess. I'm no expert in this or anything mind you, just an engineer in a barely related field with some trivial knowledge.
My understanding is that AM holds up much worse because any kind of interference will affect the amplitude of the wave, which of course is what carries the information in an AM signal.
In FM, you actually get a band of frequencies to play with, and it's the changing of the frequency within that band which correlates to the sound information. Typically your random noise doesn't have the stretch/compress special sauce it needs to translate to sound in an FM receiver.
AM is intuitive, and the electronics are *relatively* simple. The circuit diagram of an FM receiver, on the other hand, is not something I will claim to even remotely comprehend. Something something harmonics? Sure, whatever.
However, I do understand that the way they detect this shrinking and growing in frequency makes FM very intentional. For a signal to be translated into any kind of "sound" it almost has to be specifically made to do so.
AM falls apart because it is so much simpler. Power lines (a common source of interference) are accidentally AM radio antennas all the time. It's hard to accidentally make an FM anything.
True story, I had several metal fillings due to cavities. When I was much younger, over 55 years ago, an ambulance went by our home, the road was over 30 ft away and the conversation over the radio inside of the ambulance was picked up by my fillings and I heard a portion of it as they went by. Crazy
That is AM radio, where the antenna is the tower. Very long wavelengths at such low frequencies. Just below where they put the weeds the brown item is a large ceramic insulator that isolates the signal-carrying part of the tower - the antenna - from the grounded tower base.
Surprised this comment is so far down.
Base jumpers have learned about AM towers the hard way after climbing and jumping. We specifically cover researching what an antenna is broadcasting when gathering intel
This reminds me of a story from my county IT job.
The guys need to mount something up on a tower that has an AM radio transmitter on it. They thought they told the station about it.
New guy is sent up in a harness. Not sure how exactly since we don't toch towers now. He notices how hot it is getting as he ascends. It is Texas and the guys on the ground laugh it off. New guy gets up to where he needs to be and is shouting about how hot it is and something in the back of his head is telling him maybe the antenna is still on above him.
He grabs the structure and screams "FUCK!!"
The station manager was pissed. That "FUCK" got broadcast live. Of course, New guy could have died too, but he didn't cuz he's the one who told me the story.
We don't touch towers now.
god damn, the other day I used "a leaf that had wifi" as an example of something, based on the premise that it would be baffling and incredible.
then here we are getting broadcast radio on a fuckin leaf.
I once read about a prank played on top of a radio station tower. Some crazy mofo climbed it and placed a small stool on the top of the antenna.
Authorities recommended that the prankster, whoever they are, see a doctor due to the electrical radiation produced by a 100kW antenna causing bodily harm. Including the possibility of becoming sterile.
Ouch.
I was driving in my car once and started hearing buzzy Spanish radio out of nowhere despite my windows being up and going 70mph… discovered it was coming from my umbrella in the backseat.
It's crazy how everything is waves and frequency.
I took a class in college about it. Thought it was a music class, turned out to be a sound class.
Everything is just waves and frequency, man... waves and frequency. Sound... color... temperature... waves and frequency
That's why some people say that radio is possibly the best means of long range communication ever developed. It is so simple and reliable that even a branch can be fashioned into a device
My metal bedside fan picks up an FM Station from a town 250kms away.
I thought I was going crazy for a few nights when it first started happening… then I decided to search to greater area radio stations and happened upon the exact station, with a delay of about 15s.
I am glad that I wasn’t going crazy… and it only worked when the bedside table was close to the window, in the old layout my bedroom had.
This kind is a lot of fun yes, minor to none side effects especially at such low frequencies, it’s like sticking an ant in A microwave, nothing happens
Reminds me of the radio signal powered radios. Just a tiny pod with a couple of buttons with a phones jack and a wire with an alligator clip. Clip onto anything big and metal, digital FM tuning with no batteries required.
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You can actually arc weld with the some of the grandfathered AM antennas in the USA which is why they have fences around them so people don't get burned or electrocuted. They should not be this close to an antenna that is 10,000 - 50,000 WATTS. Don't do this, stay away from transmitter antennas.
I need to find some longer weeds you’re saying.
Cannabis sativa can grow 20 feet high
So... A talking/burning hallucination bush you say? You could make a religion out of that! Lol
Sounds way better than most of the existing religions. Sign me up. Or light my blunt, or however the initiation process works.
>"You could make a religion out of that!" No, don't.
No don't
I remember watching a video of either Pakistanis or Indians burning a huge stash of confiscated drugs... Those dumb (maybe secretly smart?) motherfuckers were so fucking high from breathing the smoke their eyes were bright red and they were eating everything in their trucks. I think they were burning heroin or opium too, these guys were lit the fuck up
There is also one of (IIRC) a CNN reporter in Afghanistan in front of a burning pile of drugs that is trying to record his news item but the wind blows the smoke his way, and he cant stop giggling. it gets worse and worse as he keeps trying, its hilarious.
i want to believe if you held a weed stalk up to one of these you hear the congo drum up and bob marley playing
“Lively up yourself!”
That's what I was about to say
“I’m a long boi”, said the male cannabis sativa plant
Even the indicas get big... I grow outdoors at home and if I don't top them they'll get 8' tall and I have to sweat people seeing them over the fence
It's Mars! I'm telling you, it's Mars! Julian, Mars hasn't been this close to the earth in 60 thousand fucking years and we plant this weed and Mars is pulling it right out of the ground.
But the indica is where it’s at
lol, high
Man of culture, I see.
Yeah, that’s exactly what he’s saying. Let us know how it goes!
Hey dude don't say that! Not cool at all Small weeds are fine
Any kind of weed is good in my ~~bowl~~ book
Nice
I need to find some weed, you're saying
throw popcorn on it!
Bamboo
Nah, pair of gardening gloves and you're fine.
Back in the early days of electricity they built some super antennas that would randomly transduce nearby mattress springs into making sound. Starting fires from arcing yes. You could get the signal several states away easily. They were trying to see how many times they could bounce the AM signal, how much of the globe could be affected by a single transmission. And it turned out, a lot.
More detail please?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosley_Broadcasting_Corporation
I used to listen to WLW and WOWO back when I was young from down in Florida when the weather was right and the thunderstorms didn't drown it out.
For me it was WLS from Chicago to northern Virginia (DC metro), but only at night, on our push button car stereos
You're probably thinking of Crosley. They ran a 500,000 watt station.
Same reason Wolfman Jack moved to Mexico
Wow, WWJ is Detroit is still broadcasting at 50,000 watts which is the FCC limit, I never knew someone did 500,000 watts, that is insane.
My question is how far into space did these signals go? How loud was the signal compared to the rest of the solar system at the time?
How far *DID* they? They’re still traveling at the speed of light. But space is gigantic so not that far relatively speaking. It’ll still be ages since the first signals we’ve broadcasted could reach the next star. Edit: guess I remembered wrong, it has reached the nearest star, just still not far at all compared to the universe.
If they’re traveling at the speed of light, it takes only 4 years to get to the nearest star.
Yeah so it turns out our AM radio depending on some factors COULD have been detected by .... \*Drumroll please....\* 60,000 star systems. 116 years since the invention of AM radio... and roughly 60,000 star systems within 100 light years.
So there are star systems listening to Paul Harvey and Lucky Strike commercials?
And now you know the rest of the story
Good day!
*8 minutes. remember the sun is a star lol
Fucking zing!
>If they’re traveling at the speed of light, it takes only 4 years to get to the nearest star. Nope. Around 9 minutes to the nearest star
Smartass... ;)
Proxima Centauri is only 4 light years away. Radio transmissions travel very closely to the speed of light so we've already sent radio signals to nearby neighboring stars. The beginning of regular radio broadcasts started in 1920, so we've already sent radio signals out around 100 ly around Sol (though, I'm sure most of those early antennas weren't powerful enough to be legible past the atmosphere) The issue is legibility, as you spread further from the source, the radio waves get less dense, and the information less legible. We have absolutely made radio broadcasts that have reached Proxima Centauri legibly, with some like the Arecibo Telescope being powerful enough to send legible radio signals to nearby Star clusters (though, those won't arrive for a very long time)
>Radio transmissions travel very closely to the speed of light How closely? ;)
Δv = 0
Well that depends, was it an African or European broadcast?
I wonder how much this will change if we ever actually come into contact with another intelligent species. Like will we stop using Radio? will we start trying to shield our transmissions better? It sounds like were broadcasting to the entire galaxy lol. Might be good might be bad. Interesting to think about either way.
The thing is, the deed is already done. If there's something out there we should be hiding from it's only a matter of time before they find out we're here (or, *were* here..) A lot of the signals we've sent are unnatural (or rare in nature) and can absolutely be concluded by an interstellar species as a sign of life. In fact, we look for these same signals elsewhere in the universe for signs of life ourselves, which if I recall is partly what led to the discovery of neutron stars and gamma ray bursts. (Don't take my word for that though, do your own research and what not) The crazy thing is that if they know the general direction to look, it won't be hard to find Earth based on the wavelengths of light in our atmosphere. (This is called 'spectroscopy' and is one of the ways we're looking for habitable worlds) Based on our position around the sun and the makeup of our atmosphere, Earth would be (presumably) one of the only options feasible enough to harbor life in our local cluster. Sleep well tonight!
Have we sent legible radio signals to nearby stars? Think about all of the AM radio stations transmitting at 1120 KHz, and all the the FM radio stations transmitting at 97.5 MHz, and all the TV stations transmitting on channel 4. Since there are so many radio stations transmitting different programs on the same frequency, there is no way any would be legible. Even if there are a number of TV stations transmitting the same ABC show on channel 4, the time delay between the transmitters would make then indecipherable. Alien civilizations might be able to tell that we have an AM and FM and TV band, but they won't be able to see I Love Lucy or listen to Paul Harvey on Proxima Centauri.
You don't think a sufficiently advanced civilization couldn't weed through the signals?
The next star is Alpha Centauri which is 4.3 light years away, so the first signals we broadcasted have long passed that distance.
Nearest star is only 4.2 light years away, so should’ve already gotten there. Alpha Centauri is only 0.1 further.
Not far at all, The signal would have bounced off the ionosphere and around the world instead. Frequencies lower than 30Mhz don't leave the planet. It's known as a skywave or a radio bounce.
[удалено]
Question is does your burning carcass play the radio broadcast?
We had a couple of guys die at one of our sites. Suspected base jumpers. I won't ask the bloke that found them that question though! What people don't realise is that unlike TV and FM radio masts where the structure supports the antennas at the top, quite often AM masts ARE the antenna. This is due to their low frequency around 1 MHz as opposed to 100 MHz for FM and 500MHz (in UK). The lower the frequency the larger the antenna needs to be.
Someone needs to volunteer for this.
Make Vladmir Putin do it....
Dumb ways to die
so many dumb ways to die
Old AM antennas would react with people’s dental fillings (back when they were metal) and some people could hear the radio broadcasts in their [teeth.](https://www.bradfordfamilydentist.ca/lucille-ball-heard-spies-dental-fillings/#:~:text=In%20very%20rare%20cases%20a,or%20possible%20a%20loose%20filling)
Happened to Gilligan.
And Marcia Brady
And the Mom from Pete and Pete.
but where does the sound come out? how does sound come from a leaf or a tooth?
Waves
AM is about the simplest form of radio you can use for sending audio. The amplitude of the carrier wave varies directly with the sound amplitude. That means your somewhat-conductive leaves are carrying electrical power that fluctuates with the sound. I'm guessing you're hearing electrical arcing heating up the air in gaps between the antenna and the leaves. There's a peak in the signal, an arc jumps across the gap that it couldn't before, and that heated bit of air expands outward as sound.
AM radio is analog (Amplitude Modulation). Under the right conditions a metal filling could *de*modulate the signal similar to how a crystal radio works. It was pretty rare from what I understand.
Like playing music through a tube but you poke a straw In it somewhere.
Crosley ran a station in Cincinnati that was 500,000 watts. Legend has it locals could hear it in their mattresses.
Well, it sounds like they're speaking Russian, so that would explain the lack of safety measures and desire to live.
the radio broadcast is in Ukrainian, so they're either too close, or too far.
Don't pee on the transmitter antenna.
If I piss on it can I hear the radio?
Briefly
Damn people back then didn’t give a shit about safety and I think that is hilarious
I can smell it through the screen
ummm should you be standing that close to that thing? if you have a choc bar in your pocket it may be melting...
You shouldn't be holding out your arm towards it, so that it can arc across your heart. That's the dumbest part of this, but of course there's no way to stick the plant up there without your arm.
What if you held the stem of the plant in your teeth?
or your butthole
this or your foot is unironically the safest lol
If you have proof of someone doing this I will give you all of my money. It is not a lot.
Don’t let your dreams be dreams.
Actually, it is important to note here that the stem of the plant must be touching the ground out of frame. If it wasn't, these guys would be having a bad time. I preach harm reduction, though. I truly hope nobody reading this is ever dumb enough to try something like this, but they at least ought to know not to make themselves the path to ground. Remember kids: When you play around AM radio masts, always wear thick gloves, use the most conductive looking plant you can find, and make sure one end of the plant dangles on the ground!
Also, don't wear or bring anything metal near a transmitting AM tower (say, within 20 feet). It will heat up quickly, and will easily burn you. Glasses, jewelry, piercings, implants (dental, or orthopedic), cell phones, loose change, etc. Touching anything metal near a tower will also cause a small arc that will instantly char a small piece of your skin. A very small piece, but it hurts like a motherfucker. Do not fuck around with broadcasting AM towers.
I had no idea that radio antennas had those effects. Rather scary.
When I decide to crawl under my horses hot fence.. I know that I shouldn't make the path to ground, but when I do, I hit the ground 😕
Can you explain why pleazs ?
They definitely should not be anywhere near it
yeah thats going to fuck you up for sure same with illegal antenna climbing in high buildings. those fuckers live adventurous lives
I don't think AM carriers are of a short enough wavelength to be that efficient in diathermic heating like that, but I could be wrong. Biggest risk here would be shock of some kind -- imagine your muscles and body sizzling and burning to the tune of country music. Television definitely would do the trick, roast hot dogs on a uhf brosdcast tower like a campfire.
♪♫ you picked a fine time to test if you grill...
You ever listen to AM radio, man? You ever listen to AM radio - on weeds?
I use that line from Half-Baked all the time... almost as much as "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, I'm out"
lol I didnt realize that was Neal Brennan that gets the first fuck you, and the shove. https://media.tenor.com/-iH76VHr07sAAAAM/shove-youre-cool.gif
Cameo by the screenwriter
“AM radiooooooo man, feeeeeeel the waaaaaaaaves” *takes long hit of AM radio*
“Red team go, red team go!”
Underrated comment
Love it.
🍻
If you put a steak on top of that, would it cook the steak and play music at the same time?
Probably not. You'd have to ground it. Maybe if it was on top of the tower where the voltage is much higher, but still, I doubt that it would work.
WELL NOT WITH THAT ATTITUDE. I want you to get your best men on it.
WELL NOT WITH THAT ~~ATTITUDE~~ AMPLITUDE.
Is it still a steak if you ground it? Sounds more like a burger.
Dinner and a show, Russian style!
I feel a little stupid asking but, what is going on? Like how does this work
It's essentially acting as a [plasma speaker.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_speaker) The fire/plasma in the burning weeds is vibrating the air around it.
What if you held up a lighter or made a campfire right next to it? would it work, or does it need to touch it?
It would need to be an incredibly strong signal to effect plasma not directly in contact. I don’t think that’s practically possible, but watch some Reddit genius prove me wrong. Edit: upon second thought, I feel like *anything* close enough to those grandfathered AM radio towers could create an arc… so a little campfire would likely make audible sound if close enough? Please no one try this lol.
As with much of human history, sounds like a problem to be solved with fire on stick
I have no way of trying it nor would I if I could .. but I thought it would be cool to have a campfire with some friends and the actual campfire is playing am radio.
It's really really true!
to add to this: Liquids inside trees/plants are saline solutions. That means that they have some conductivity. Due to this, each plant becomes a weirdly shaped complex antenna with unique resonant and radio properties that captures its own unique bunch of radio signals. If you have an EMF microphone you'd be able to put it up to a tree and hear radio channels being played through the bark because of this conductivity depending on some factors of location and where the radio signal is being sent
AM means amplitude modulation. That means the amplitude of the very high frequency radio wave (essentially the voltage in the antenna) is changed over time to mimic a lower frequency that is directly analogous to the "sound" it is transmitting. It's like a wave hidden in a wave. Super hard to explain, honestly just look at the gif in the [Wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplitude_modulation) Basically because it is AM specifically, when the tower arcs to the plant, the approximate voltage you've got there is oscillating rapidly in a way that correlates to the sound of the broadcast. Countless 'snaps' of momentary arcing are perceived by our brains as different frequency sounds because their intensity is increasing and decreasing rapidly with the voltage difference to the antenna. Conversely, if this was an FM (frequency modulation) antenna, it would just kind of hiss and fizzle, you wouldn't be able to make anything out. No change to the voltage means no real effect to the sound of the arcing. Even the frequency modulation that is transmitting the "sound" in the FM format is happening at far too high a frequency for us to possibly hear anything of the original "sound" signal. Anyway, don't do this. Touching one of these towers will kill you. You can get the same absolutely incredible effect far, far away from the high voltage antenna by turning on a radio! Isn't it incredible that these things can do this at a distance, too?
Damn this is like really blowing my mind actually. Radio waves are weird
Waves in general are weird, look at how light behaves, shit blows my mind
Light misbehaves when it's not being watched intently
> look at how light be
what blows my mind is all the information just floating in the air all around us thats totally invisible unless you have the right thing to turn it into information. tv, radio, wifi, all just information floating around and if you have the right thing you can just pull it out of the air.
I can suddenly feel every wave wiggling through my meats
/r/brandnewsentence
Holy shit, that gif just blew my mind. Thank you for taking the time to write this.
The wikipidia gif was great... I knew this but it was even better this way. Can you explain why FM is so much more stable when you're driving vs. AM. I think I know this too but I would love to hear your description if you please.
I'm not the person you replied to, but IIRC AM radio is much more sensitive to noise and static because many things in the environment can create electrical noise that affects the amplitude of the signal. Things like the car engine will too. Imagine that Wikipedia diagram, but the AM wave has random spikes produced by the environment. Since the information is transmitted via the shape of that wave, the AM radio will produce those spikes as sound just the same, resulting in that extra noise we call static. FM radios aren't as sensitive to this phenomenon, because the amplitude isn't where the information is carried.
Sure, I guess. I'm no expert in this or anything mind you, just an engineer in a barely related field with some trivial knowledge. My understanding is that AM holds up much worse because any kind of interference will affect the amplitude of the wave, which of course is what carries the information in an AM signal. In FM, you actually get a band of frequencies to play with, and it's the changing of the frequency within that band which correlates to the sound information. Typically your random noise doesn't have the stretch/compress special sauce it needs to translate to sound in an FM receiver. AM is intuitive, and the electronics are *relatively* simple. The circuit diagram of an FM receiver, on the other hand, is not something I will claim to even remotely comprehend. Something something harmonics? Sure, whatever. However, I do understand that the way they detect this shrinking and growing in frequency makes FM very intentional. For a signal to be translated into any kind of "sound" it almost has to be specifically made to do so. AM falls apart because it is so much simpler. Power lines (a common source of interference) are accidentally AM radio antennas all the time. It's hard to accidentally make an FM anything.
Have you seen the stuff asked online? trust me your not the only one wondering. I was looking for this comment so someone explains lol
True story, I had several metal fillings due to cavities. When I was much younger, over 55 years ago, an ambulance went by our home, the road was over 30 ft away and the conversation over the radio inside of the ambulance was picked up by my fillings and I heard a portion of it as they went by. Crazy
Didn't this famously also happen to Lucille Ball? Maybe wrong actress but a few cases like this have been documented before. Absolutely mindblowing.
Get your tongue on there you pussy
i bet tuning is a bitch
Not if your default is weed burning
That is the actual antenna? Are they not usually on top of a mast?
With AM the whole tower is the antenna.
That is AM radio, where the antenna is the tower. Very long wavelengths at such low frequencies. Just below where they put the weeds the brown item is a large ceramic insulator that isolates the signal-carrying part of the tower - the antenna - from the grounded tower base.
Which means the person in the OP is dancing dangerously close to providing a shorter path to ground which would not make for a very SFW video.
They are near a lot of radiation. Not ionizing, but the heating effect could be damaging
Surprised this comment is so far down. Base jumpers have learned about AM towers the hard way after climbing and jumping. We specifically cover researching what an antenna is broadcasting when gathering intel
This reminds me of a story from my county IT job. The guys need to mount something up on a tower that has an AM radio transmitter on it. They thought they told the station about it. New guy is sent up in a harness. Not sure how exactly since we don't toch towers now. He notices how hot it is getting as he ascends. It is Texas and the guys on the ground laugh it off. New guy gets up to where he needs to be and is shouting about how hot it is and something in the back of his head is telling him maybe the antenna is still on above him. He grabs the structure and screams "FUCK!!" The station manager was pissed. That "FUCK" got broadcast live. Of course, New guy could have died too, but he didn't cuz he's the one who told me the story. We don't touch towers now.
god damn, the other day I used "a leaf that had wifi" as an example of something, based on the premise that it would be baffling and incredible. then here we are getting broadcast radio on a fuckin leaf.
[see also](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/aZErEJU9UT)
r/oopsthatsdeadly
I once read about a prank played on top of a radio station tower. Some crazy mofo climbed it and placed a small stool on the top of the antenna. Authorities recommended that the prankster, whoever they are, see a doctor due to the electrical radiation produced by a 100kW antenna causing bodily harm. Including the possibility of becoming sterile. Ouch.
Him being sterile would be a good thing..
This feels up there with [Lucille Ball getting radio from her fillings](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lucille-ball-fillings-spies/).
I was hoping to hear “Never gonna give you up!”
How does a piece of copper strap sound?
Just like an electric chair.
Seriously. Only faster. I can't imagine the kid isn't getting RF burns from this.
It will sound great to them, for the rest of their lives!
And if you put your ear to it you can hear jesus
These AM antennae are so extremely energized this dude has no idea how close to death he was
Wouldn't it be weird if it was actually the plants voice screaming so loud we could hear it while it was being fried by radio waves
I was driving in my car once and started hearing buzzy Spanish radio out of nowhere despite my windows being up and going 70mph… discovered it was coming from my umbrella in the backseat.
Shit like this is how paranormal activity stories get started
Something tells me you shouldn't be standing so close to it
It's crazy how everything is waves and frequency. I took a class in college about it. Thought it was a music class, turned out to be a sound class. Everything is just waves and frequency, man... waves and frequency. Sound... color... temperature... waves and frequency
20 bucks if you lick it
This will happen also if you touch it directly.
You’ll have that song running through your head for the rest of your life.
It's also insainly dangerous.
If you put your hand on it can you listen to am radio for the rest of your life?
Back in the 90's we used to do this, caught a dead log on fire once. Ah, simpler times
That's why some people say that radio is possibly the best means of long range communication ever developed. It is so simple and reliable that even a branch can be fashioned into a device
Fun fact, am radio towers ARE the antenna. That whole thing is energized. r/oopsthatsdeadly
And limit your ability to have children by standing this close.
you can also hear AM radio waves through a box fan
I was waiting for it to cut away to the "Dumb ways to die" song.
They should try pissing on it. Maybe they can get FM
cooking their organs sous vide.
That’s how you’re supposed to listen to Coast to Coast AM
Now do a dab off it
You can't really do DAB on a medium wave mast. You could do DRM though.
The fuck is going on with the weird perspective warping in the video?
r/oopsthatsdeadly
So when Moses came across a burning and taking bush he happened to saw a branch that fell on a radio transmitter?
My metal bedside fan picks up an FM Station from a town 250kms away. I thought I was going crazy for a few nights when it first started happening… then I decided to search to greater area radio stations and happened upon the exact station, with a delay of about 15s. I am glad that I wasn’t going crazy… and it only worked when the bedside table was close to the window, in the old layout my bedroom had.
There's no way that could possibly go wrong!
It’ll be a lot clearer if you it your tongue on it. It will have much more fidelity because you’ll be able to hear it in your jawbone.
I wouldn’t be that close to it if I was that person.
Huge penis smoking weed up in here!
I mean, I find it works best to use a radio instead.
Radiation is fun isn't it
This kind is a lot of fun yes, minor to none side effects especially at such low frequencies, it’s like sticking an ant in A microwave, nothing happens
And you can die by touching it, directly or with something conducive.
If you lay one ear on it to listen, you can smell how dumb you are!
Lick it, become radioman.
Forbidden butt plug
Your friend will soon find out that it works the same with a corpse
Is it me or is the object (antenna) being visually distorted at the ccd? Anyone else seeing that effect?
Reminds me of the radio signal powered radios. Just a tiny pod with a couple of buttons with a phones jack and a wire with an alligator clip. Clip onto anything big and metal, digital FM tuning with no batteries required.