Saturday, April 28, 2012

THE SHOVEL DEMODULATOR

Receive a radio station with loudspeaker volume using nothing but a shovel? Yes, you can do that, but you have to be a little close to the source:

Scroll this video to the 3:30 mark and you'll learn the trick.

I shouldn't have to say it but I will: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Or at your local station. Really. They won't like it -- and neither will you, if the base impedance is high enough. Higher the Z, the higher the E and the higher the E, the farther the spark will jump. The fellow in the video has a nice, low-impedance point to use and a transmitter so big it doesn't care -- and it's still no fun for the shovel. (Do it to your little "coffeepot" AM and you can end up in the Feddie pen as a bonus prize; it's worse if you're crispy, too but they tell me it's no fun either way.)

1 comment:

  1. Wow. When we got the nickel tour of a local 50kw commercial station, we didn't bother going outside the building as it was foggy and no one wanted to get lit up. I presume this guy has done this multiple times judging by the chunks missing from the edge of the shovel. Makes me glad I went into digital stuff rather than QRO RF.

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