# Hearing radio through the teeth **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 13, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165 "2006-03-13T14:43:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/1 "2006-03-13T14:43:06Z")
In reference to [this post](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_057.html) . When I was a teen, complete with braces on my teeth, the hot rock radio station in Houston was KILT, 610 AM. I lived less than a mile from the studio and it was a great place to go hang out. Sometimes the DJ would open the back door and let us into the studio. Anyway, whenever I was very close to their building, like in the parking lot, I would receive them on my braces. My friends thought it was a total blast that I could hear the radio without a radio, so to speak. It was considered great fun to turn off all the transistor radios and wait for the next song to come on. I would identify it and then everyone would turn on the radios and marvel at the fact that I had heard it. To my young and stupid teenage mind, it was the only positive thing about having braces. Good times, good times. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/2 "2006-03-13T15:30:50Z")
One time, I had just finished some lemonade, and I felt some buzzing in my teeth. I found that if my teeth on the left side (with metal fillings) were held slightly apart with some of my acidic spit in between, the buzzing would happen. I figured it was radio. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/3 "2006-03-13T18:33:36Z")
Apparently my mother was picking up a very faint radio signal through some dental work decades ago. At first she thought she was losing it, especially as she really couldn’t hear it unless she were alone in a quiet situation. When her dentist said it was entirely possible she was picking something up she felt a lot better… ---
**Author:** ![rjd14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c37758/32.png) [@rjd14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjd14)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/4 "2006-03-13T20:51:01Z")
The team at Mythbusters (TV show on Discovery) busted this myth using the Lucille Ball story as a basis for the experiment. Check out the episode if you get a chance. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/5 "2006-03-13T21:12:53Z")
> [@rjd14](#): > > The team at Mythbusters (TV show on Discovery) busted this myth using the Lucille Ball story as a basis for the experiment. Check out the episode if you get a chance. This was a terrible segment. While the particular Lucy story is no doubt bunk, the physics is really simple. They displayed great ignorance in how a crystal radio works. You don’t need a battery to pick up radio folks. I listened to radio stations 2 thousand miles away on a crystal radio as a kid. And … I once got AM in my right ear after biting down hard on a peppercorn and jammed a filling. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/6 "2006-03-14T00:35:52Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > This was a terrible segment. While the particular Lucy story is no doubt bunk, the physics is really simple. They displayed great ignorance in how a crystal radio works. You don’t need a battery to pick up radio folks. I listened to radio stations 2 thousand miles away on a crystal radio as a kid. > > And … I once got AM in my right ear after biting down hard on a peppercorn and jammed a filling. Right, for AM. All that is required is a device that conducts better in one direction than the other and something loose enough or flexible enough to vibrate at audio frequencies. The non-linear device detects the audio and the loose or flexible part makes the audio audible via bone conduction of the sound. FM is a little trickier. You need something that changes the amplitude of signals of different frequencies. This makes a crude AM of the FM. Then proceed as above to hear the sound. I don’t believe I have ever heard of anyone picking up an FM broadcast in this way. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_User\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Some\_User\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_User_Name)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/7 "2006-03-15T02:48:13Z")
In college, I lived on the top floor of our high-rise dorms, roughly level with the transmission antenna for the student radio station, which was a fairly low power (1150 watt) FM station. Although I couldn’t receive it with my teeth, we did receive it in just about every other unshielded electronics device that could make noise- unshielded speakers, TV stations turned to vacant channels, modems, answering machines, phones, you name it… if it had a battery, a length of wire, and a speaker, it would come in as interference, although softly. ---
**Author:** ![rcburket](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/82dd89/32.png) [@rcburket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rcburket)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hearing-radio-through-the-teeth/348165/8 "2006-03-15T21:50:35Z")
Once, when I had my braces on, we went to Mount Wilson (the mountain behind Los Angeles on which all the radio and television transmitters were built). I could clearly hear some broadcast in my mouth when standing directly under the transmitters. Never any other time, though. Bob Burket Santa Monica, California