TECH Deadly AM radio tower experiment: hot dog speaks on contact

Macgyver

Macgyver

Has No Life - Lives on TB

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Deadly AM radio tower experiment: hot dog speaks on contact​




hot dog radio experiment

Geerling Engineering/YouTube


What happens when you attach a hot dog to a long stick and touch it to an AM radio broadcasting tower? It talks!
From the YouTube description:

View: https://youtu.be/GgDxXDV4_hc?si=HesGdfCmYAGGxdCk


DO NOT TRY THIS. Seriously. That out of the way, we devised a test to see just how dangerous the RF energy can be on an AM tower, if someone were to touch it while it was transmitting. This tower was operating under 10 kW. There are many AM towers broadcasting at much higher power levels, so they are even more dangerous. RF burns can kill, and there's a reason there are fences around these towers. Hopefully we have satiated your curiosity with this video.
Click to expand...
Just think if they could productize this. You could have a conversation with your food, obviating the need for dinner partner. The only downside is you'd be electrocuted.
 
dstraito

dstraito

TB Fanatic
My dad used to work at a low watt AM radio station a long time ago. He had a coworker that used to first thing in the morning turn on the transmitter, wet his finger and run it past the transmitter. There would be an arc follow his finger but it never caught him. That is until the coworker got a job at a high watt radio station and he tried that same trick.

It fried him.
 
Wildweasel

Wildweasel

F-4 Phantoms Phorever
Millwright said:
Did some work at a few blowtorch stations.

The engineers warned us to not get anywhere near the tower...it is the antenna.
Click to expand...
Then there are those stations in Mexico near the border running 10x (and more) the power of US stations that have "Death Zone" fenced-off areas around their towers, with the fences out hundreds of yards from the towers. Heard them driving by on the US side with the radio turned OFF.
 
Southside

Southside

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Millwright said:
Did some work at a few blowtorch stations.

The engineers warned us to not get anywhere near the tower...it is the antenna.
Click to expand...
I used to "park" under the one WLS(50,000 watt blow torch, as it is known) that is at I-80 and LaGrange Road.
No use turning on any other station, all you got was WLS, or static. The house was 2-3 miles away. We always heard WLS over the phone.
 
P

Publius

TB Fanatic
Southside said:
I used to "park" under the one WLS(50,000 watt blow torch, as it is known) that is at I-80 and LaGrange Road.
No use turning on any other station, all you got was WLS, or static. The house was 2-3 miles away. We always heard WLS over the phone.
Click to expand...

Thats a dirty transmitter and I guess no one ever contacted the FCC and complained and they never had a visit by the FCC as they would have been force to shut down and fix the problem.
 
mzkitty

mzkitty

I give up.
Southside said:
I used to "park" under the one WLS(50,000 watt blow torch, as it is known) that is at I-80 and LaGrange Road.
No use turning on any other station, all you got was WLS, or static. The house was 2-3 miles away. We always heard WLS over the phone.
Click to expand...

I got WLS in Roch on my tiny transistor radio late at night. I heard WKBW in Buffalo was so strong they used to listen to it in Cuba. I listened to that all the time since it was the *hip* station back then. Especially the Danny/Joey changeover, or if you remember that far back, The Sound of the Hound. LOL. First station I heard the Beatles on. I even got a country station in Kansas one stormy night. Radio is funny.
 
Blacknarwhal

Blacknarwhal

Let's Go Brandon!
mzkitty said:
I got WLS in Roch on my tiny transistor radio late at night. I heard WKBW in Buffalo was so strong they used to listen to it in Cuba. I listened to that all the time since it was the *hip* station back then. Especially the Danny/Joey changeover, or if you remember that far back, The Sound of the Hound. LOL. First station I heard the Beatles on. I even got a country station in Kansas one stormy night. Radio is funny.
Click to expand...

Way back when, WLS was known for National Barn Dance. Their last episode, they announced the station was changing format to rock and roll. Lot of sad people that day.
 
Haybails

Haybails

When In Doubt, Throttle Out!
I've been in commercial radio for 35+ years - and my father was in radio back to the late 50s . . . I remember one day visiting the antenna of one of the high-powered AM stations he worked at, and watching blue ring lightning travel down the 'guide wires' that stabilized the antenna. It looked like a scene out of the Frankenstein movies - with the "zzzzzzz" sound effect included. :eek:

I also remember helping him with some of his 'remote broadcasts' as well as all of mine during the early years of my career, and the warning was to not grab the Yagi antenna for the remote transmitter because you'd get "bone burns". I don't know what the medical term/equivalent to that is, but I do remember the knuckles on my hands getting stiff and sore when I'd move them around.

UPDATED TO ADD: I'm not an engineer.

HB
 
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LoupGarou

LoupGarou

Ancient Fuzzball
Pass on the hot dog trick.

More fun is when you "plant" either 4 foot or 8 foot fluorescent tubes in the ground around the antenna and they not only light up, they pulse with the audio.

You can also do it under most Ultra High tension wire sets... (Look up Richard Box's "Field of Light" for a great example).
 
P

Profit of Doom

Dismember
Macgyver said:

Loading…

boingboing.net

Deadly AM radio tower experiment: hot dog speaks on contact​




hot dog radio experiment

Geerling Engineering/YouTube


What happens when you attach a hot dog to a long stick and touch it to an AM radio broadcasting tower? It talks!
From the YouTube description:

View: https://youtu.be/GgDxXDV4_hc?si=HesGdfCmYAGGxdCk



Just think if they could productize this. You could have a conversation with your food, obviating the need for dinner partner. The only downside is you'd be electrocuted.
Click to expand...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HLy27bK-wU&pp=ygUSTGV0cyBtZWV0IHRoZSBtZWF0
 
meezy

meezy

I think I can...
I live near the WLW tower in Mason, Ohio, which used to be the Voice of America relay at 500,000 watts. (I looked it up)
I don't know how true it is (it probably is!) but people who lived nearby said they could hear the broadcasts on their fences, plumbing, rain gutters, etc. Yikes.

Now I think it's only 50,000 watts. There's a shopping center right next to it. And a cool museum that I have never been into despite loving museums and driving past it at least twice a month. I really need to correct that.
 
D

Delta

Has No Life - Lives on TB
What interested me about the video was that the kid's hair changed from dark to gray between the time he stuck the hotdog on the "broom handle" and the scene where he made the dog touch the tower. I assume it was the anticipation.
 
Wildweasel

Wildweasel

F-4 Phantoms Phorever
LoupGarou said:
Pass on the hot dog trick.

More fun is when you "plant" either 4 foot or 8 foot fluorescent tubes in the ground around the antenna and they not only light up, they pulse with the audio.

You can also do it under most Ultra High tension wire sets... (Look up Richard Box's "Field of Light" for a great example).
Click to expand...
Pointing the antenna of a one-million Watt (ERP) operating F-4 radar at the fluorescent lights of a portable lighting cart will light them up. Had buddies do that to one being towed down the ramp and the driver of the tow tug got out and ran from the "haunted Light-All".
 
Carl2

Carl2

Pass it forward...
A friend operated our firing battery's tropospheric scatter microwave communications tracked vehicle. We would cook hotdogs by disconnecting the wave guide signal feed and hanging the hotdog in front of the wave guide opening whilst he keyed the transmitter, which was rated for around 1500 watts output.
 
coalcracker

coalcracker

Veteran Member
mzkitty said:
I got WLS in Roch on my tiny transistor radio late at night. I heard WKBW in Buffalo was so strong they used to listen to it in Cuba. I listened to that all the time since it was the *hip* station back then. Especially the Danny/Joey changeover, or if you remember that far back, The Sound of the Hound. LOL. First station I heard the Beatles on. I even got a country station in Kansas one stormy night. Radio is funny.
Click to expand...
“WKBW muuuuuuuuuusic!”
I forget which guy said that, but
it still rings in my ears. “Hip” indeed.
 
mzkitty

mzkitty

I give up.
coalcracker said:
“WKBW muuuuuuuuuusic!”
I forget which guy said that, but
it still rings in my ears. “Hip” indeed.
Click to expand...

Yup, I'll never forget them playing the Beatles for the first time. They had a contest -- Beatles, I Want To Hold Your Hand vs something by the Beachboys. Instant mind blow. It was nuts.

:lol:
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
A transmitter from one of the blowtorch stations, WHO in Des Moines, IIRC.

The old unit is still there, behind this one. They didn't tear it out, just built the new one in front of it.

18990515985_3234218b87_c.jpg
 
LoupGarou

LoupGarou

Ancient Fuzzball
Millwright said:
A transmitter from one of the blowtorch stations, WHO in Des Moines, IIRC.

The old unit is still there, behind this one. They didn't tear it out, just built the new one in front of it.
Click to expand...
Probably because it is one of the more structural parts of the building...
 
H

Horn

Contributing Member
I worked on/in Loran transmitting stations while in the Coast Guard.

The fenced in area at the base of the transmitting antennas often had a collection of small animal bones.
 
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