Don't tell Rick Sanchez
What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
31–40 of 137 posts
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#32Sometimes 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).
I mean, sometimes it's edifying to just find out cool stuff about the world and the ways it feels a little magical. We have a local power company here that has a trailer with a set of power wires and a transformer on it, and at their events, a TRAINED linesman will do tricks with it. They spend the first half of the presentation doing safety instructions ("don't touch the wire because you'll get fried", "here's how squirrels can cause shorts") and the other half doing magic tricks like making pinwheels spin, metal film levitate, etc. Fun stuff to see.
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#33I 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.
I see a similar comment at the end of the original article that mentions that pickles incandesce. Is it true incandescence or is it just internal arcing?
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#34Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#35A soapbox of mine here in the UK is that since BBC and commercial AM radio is more or less dead with the remaining stations set to close over the next few years, Ofcom should open up the band to low-power broadcasting hobbyists. These already exist illegitimately and have done for decades, you can pick up plenty from the Netherlands and a few domestic ones as well on a sporadic schedule.
It would be a nice thing to do from several angles I think and would help drive interest in radio as a technology in general; as well as building transmitters and aerial systems, there's things like setting up an audio processing chain to get the best possible modulation and being a disc jockey which will always have a bit of a buzz from being on the 'real' radio. If valves and vintage equipment are involved it would be an interesting form of technology history preservation and 'living history', and there's also an environmental angle where old analogue radio receivers could be prevented from becoming e-waste.
There could be a minimal licencing regime to demonstrate the individual is not a complete numpty and a fee to PRS for music rights along the lines of how streaming works. Maximum power could be kept low especially at night to avoid interfering with countries in Europe where AM radio is still an active platform, and I don't think there'd need to be a lot of enforcement with respect to content since you'd only realistically be broadcasting to other anoraks. Additionally there's already precedent for non-profit stations where the medium of AM itself plays a role, for example former pirate Radio Caroline which uses it to keep its historic radio ship in operation.
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#36A soapbox of mine here in the UK is that since BBC and commercial AM radio is more or less dead with the remaining stations set to close over the next few years, Ofcom should open up the band to low-power broadcasting hobbyists. These already exist illegitimately and have done for decades, you can pick up plenty from the Netherlands and a few domestic ones as well on a sporadic schedule. It would be a nice thing to d…
I think lots of communities running localised AM stations could be super cool.
> There could be a minimal licencing regime to demonstrate the individual is not a complete numpty [..]
I wouldn't bother and it just adds more resistance.
> [..] and a fee to PRS for music rights along the lines of how streaming works.
I think the quality is so low and the audience so few that it wouldn't matter.
> Maximum power could be kept low especially at night to avoid interfering with countries in Europe where AM radio is still an active platform, [..]
Yeah, not sure where the sweet zone would be though.
> [..] and I don't think there'd need to be a lot of enforcement with respect to content since you'd only realistically be broadcasting to other anoraks.
That would be the point, just low-power decentralised communities. Only real reason to get involved is if the power goes too high or band use is not respectful to other users.
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#37I'll be keeping my pickle far away from any radio towers.
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#38A soapbox of mine here in the UK is that since BBC and commercial AM radio is more or less dead with the remaining stations set to close over the next few years, Ofcom should open up the band to low-power broadcasting hobbyists. These already exist illegitimately and have done for decades, you can pick up plenty from the Netherlands and a few domestic ones as well on a sporadic schedule. It would be a nice thing to d…
I think lots of communities running localised AM stations could be super cool. > There could be a minimal licencing regime to demonstrate the individual is not a complete numpty [..] I wouldn't bother and it just adds more resistance. > [..] and a fee to PRS for music rights along the lines of how streaming works. I think the quality is so low and the audience so few that it wouldn't matter. > Maximum power could be…
That's a good point about the regulation given the low quality, I suppose if it was a problem they'd already have gone after public SDRs capturing the broadcast bands.
It doesn't sound like the sort of thing Ofcom would go for as I suspect it'd be seen as making unnecessary work for them, but you never know. Someone there clearly likes Radio Caroline (despite Ofcom's predecessors having fought to close it for decades in its pirate days) because they got awarded a 1 kW and later 4 kW power limit when AM community stations are usually much lower, so there might be sympathy towards the idea of more community AM generally. It would be a difficult thing to lobby for politically I think because it's such a niche interest, but it'd be an easy thing for them to do and there's not much else that part of the spectrum can be used for easily.
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#39I always wonder if there would be any pain in the death that results from touching one of these. I’d assume it’d be instant from the electricity traveling through your heart - or would you just burn up more slowly?
Re: What happens when you touch a pickle to an AM radio tower
#40I understand he got permission and everything was checked out by actual RF eggheads, but damn. I won't even change a HV run capacitor unless i'm wearing crocs, standing on cement, and wearing the rubber oven mitts. And even then, I keep one hand behind my back. Because there have been accidents, and they hurt (the pool pump run cap fails approximately annually in this climate and if I paid someone to change it every time, I'd be a lot poorer).
That said, the food demodulating the signal into audible noise is badass.