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What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

jeffgeerling.com

21–30 of 137 posts

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#21
post #19
post #6

I mentioned over dinner at my parents house (about 20 years ago) that I'd read that running 240v through a gherkin would cause it to glow - and pretty much as soon as dinner was over, my father and I had the experiment set up. Gherkins and even pickled onions glowed brilliantly. I set up a basic site to share the video we'd taken and details of the experiment, and shared it to B3ta. Sadly all lost to time.

"WRL Technical Note TN-13 Characterization of Organic Illumination Systems" https://simh.trailing-edge.com/semi/docs/WRL-TN-13.pdf

Further testing indicated that the taste was neither enhanced nor diminished, but remained ‘‘very much like a pickle.’’ Our conclusion is that the culinary potential of electrical stimulation is limited.

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#22
post #19
post #6

I mentioned over dinner at my parents house (about 20 years ago) that I'd read that running 240v through a gherkin would cause it to glow - and pretty much as soon as dinner was over, my father and I had the experiment set up. Gherkins and even pickled onions glowed brilliantly. I set up a basic site to share the video we'd taken and details of the experiment, and shared it to B3ta. Sadly all lost to time.

"WRL Technical Note TN-13 Characterization of Organic Illumination Systems" https://simh.trailing-edge.com/semi/docs/WRL-TN-13.pdf

This is gold and I will be keeping this .PDF in my rather limited data hoard.

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#23
post #5

How is it possible that these towers have not been made more difficult to access? Is it usual for them to be secured only by a low fence?!

There'll be a higher external fence for access by vehicles and people who need to go near the tower (someone is mowing that grass), the short fence is just a reminder to go no further unless authorised.

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#24
Sometimes I feel sorry for myself when I read articles like this. At the end of the page, I usually start asking myself, "Why was I even curious about this?" Anyway, I will probably use this knowledge in 10 years. Hopefully (so far, that’s how things have been going for me).

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#27
What I didn't see explained in these videos, and which I'm now curious about, is the mechanism by which the hot dogs convert the radio signal into sound? I understand how a loudspeaker works, but since food products typically don't contain coils and magnets, how was the AM signal being demodulated and converted into sound waves?

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#28

What I didn't see explained in these videos, and which I'm now curious about, is the mechanism by which the hot dogs convert the radio signal into sound? I understand how a loudspeaker works, but since food products typically don't contain coils and magnets, how was the AM signal being demodulated and converted into sound waves?

Just the sparks themselves can produce audio! [0].

[0] https://youtu.be/lbubH1FovFc?si=T7Q7CqDNz3NtbLFl

Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower

#29

What I didn't see explained in these videos, and which I'm now curious about, is the mechanism by which the hot dogs convert the radio signal into sound? I understand how a loudspeaker works, but since food products typically don't contain coils and magnets, how was the AM signal being demodulated and converted into sound waves?

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