[BC] AM detection in teeth/fillings

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

It's usually simpler than that. They may be hearing real sound.
In the "olden" days when we would actually go out to the tower(s)
to make the daily readings, we could hear the radio station music
and speech coming from the tower tuning equipment. Mica capacitors
are slightly piezoelectric and the inductors with unsymmetrical fields
would also demodulate the signal into real audio.

Many metallic objects can act as a coherer, detecting AM radio signals. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherer

Although the common folklore involves the fillings in one's teeth,
people who have false teeth can also often hear nearby radio
stations.

Inside the tower base buildings (yes, we actually had buildings there
in the "olden" days, I'd often put a cheap Oaktron speaker on the wall
with a diode across its voice-coil. This would increase and improve
the sound available in the tuning houses.

If you have solid-state radios, televisions, hi-fi, etc., turned off near
high power stations, you can often hear the sound coming from the
speakers because of the same kind of rectification.

--
Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Read about my book
http://www.LymanSchool.org


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: wpio <wpio at gate.net>
> I agreed to speak 10 minutes to to a senior club of about 
> 200 next Tuesday.
> 
> They want a shirt sleeve explanation of how radio works, but 
>   specifically asked me to tell what is known (truth or 
> fiction) about people reporting that they "hear" radio when 
> living near big AM stations.
> 
> I think it is this the phenomenon whereby the dental amalgam 
> metal is acting like a crystal in teeth?
> 
> Are the teeth then making a vibration producing audio, or is 
> it a nerve transfer of the detected audio into other nerves, 
> mimicking sound?
> 
> Anyone who can refer me to an explanation, Thanks!