Thanks for the clarification.
Of both what? What are you trying to say?
(I’m responding to this post simply because it’s the most recent in the series.)
I’ve always been VERY skeptical about these anecdotes (receiving radio broadcasts through fillings). Granted, a non-linear junction (crystal, transistor, or whatever) can be used in making a simple AM radio receiver, but even the simplest receiver of that type requires a reasonable antenna and some sort of mechanical transducer. Radios using transmitted RF to power the transducer usually have to have an earth ground as well. And how is this circuit actually tuning?
One can argue that some undefined chemical reaction in the mouth is creating a voltage source, that the jaw might act as a resonating surface, and so forth and so on, but it really strains credulity. You can’t toss a germanium diode into a glass of salt water and hear your local baseball game.
Can someone stand very close to an extremely powerful transmitter and get some effect in their fillings? Maybe. But this is not what’s usually described.
I vaugely recall Mythbusters did something on this with a skull and simulated saliva and maybe some acid because on of the theories involved citrus. Or maybe it was someone else. Or maybe false memory. I vote for Mandela Effect.
But something like that only has to happen once to become fodder for TV writers in varied situations.
I would point out that the rarity of this happening (if it really happens at all) speaks to how difficult it would be for the necessary circuit elements to come together by chance.
60s and 70s sitcoms didn’t even need a valid instance of some odd thing happening. All they needed was a room full of average TV writers, a deadline for a “new” plot idea rapidly approaching, and an audience that didn’t care about fact-checking The Brady Bunch.
I remember reading about a case of tinnitus claimed to be caused by a filling vibrating from radio frequency transmissions. There was no claim that a radio broadcast could be heard, no mention of braces. Maybe that’s possible on it’s own as the shape of a filling inside a tooth might leave some tendril that of the shape and size. Something like that could produce the fillings and/or braces radio receiver stories.
Yeah, but dental work receiving radio signals? That’s a wildly unique idea for a sitcom writer throwing stories together at light speed. I suspect they all started their day reading the filler stories in the daily newspaper for ideas.
Or heard the legend circulating orally and thought it would make a good story, which, after all, is one of the factors that makes such contemporary legends (formerly known as urban legends) circulate orally in the first place.
Such stories are usually about societal anxieties. Getting braces is really anxious-making for teens, and sixty years ago, transitor radios were relatively new technology and radios could be built at home (crystal radio sets etc.); teens also tend to have fairly low literacy in more advanced science, and I suspect most TV writers and viewers also fall into that category.
Yes, this! I was trying to say that you’d get the writers for various sitcoms reading about same dubious effect, like “Dental Talk Radio”… or stealing it from the first show to do it…
And it never mattered to the writers whether it had really actually happened in the real world. As long as they could make it happen in * Gilligan’s Island , ALF , Gimme a Break! , Charles in Charge , Small Wonder , Punky Brewster , or Webster… all the way back to I Love Lucy etc.
People who did both large amounts of good and large amounts of evil. Or varying amounts of good and evil. Whatever. People are usually complicated. Whether one side balances out the other is making for endless discussion and soul-searching these days.
Certainly this is anecdotal, but my sister was able to pick up WLS radio station for part of a day. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, either a filling or something to do with her braces or both.
The organist in Slap Shot did not receive a screen credit, but his name is Rod Masters. 45 years after the movie he became organist for the Seattle Kraken. He wears a helmet while playing.
One fillings picking up radio stations story has been attributed to Lucille Ball during WWII. This story dates only to the 1970s when she was interviewed by Dick Cavett and by then the concept had already been used on an episode of Gilligan’s Island.
However, maybe someone has a way to access this paper on Pseudohallucinations: radio reception through shrapnel fragments which might help with the general concept.
Well, this radiowave conduction/induction teeth and fillings proposition, might be part and parcel of this mythology of “Tinfoil Hats” and either induction or veriduction and blocking. M8ght also hearken to “special dentists” that install Rfid and trackers locators, cyanide teeth…
I learned that reading about it in Sex and Rockets about Jack Parsons. Fascinating book.
The human body can make an antenna. I was able to improve the video signal of an old TV by putting my fingers on the antenna connection.
Sometimes you don’t even need to touch the connection; just standing in a certain place can improve reception.
The effect is really due more to capacitive coupling ,but I’ll happily admit that the human body can in some circumstances act as an antenna.
In a crystal radio such as the type we’ve been discussing, the antenna (coupled with an earth ground) is supplying all the energy for the device and transducer. This is a lot more difficult to do with just a big blob of meat. AM wavelengths are pretty long.