What sorcery is this? 🤣

In the past, my subwoofer was picking up my neighbor's phone conversations and I could hear him talking on his wireless phone. (Hilarity ensued when I was asking him about stuff he talked on the phone about.)

It's far from unheard of, actually. It's electromagnetic interference. Some part of your laptop matches the resonance frequency of that radio station. That would produce just noise though. Since you can actually hear the broadcast itself, that means that the laptop also has some material properties that act as a low-pass filter, which means the interference you get resembles the audio wave that is being carried.

A good and short intro on how radio works:

http://physics.bu.edu/~duffy/semester2/c23_radio.html

realnc wrote:

In the past, my subwoofer was picking up my neighbor's phone conversations and I could hear him talking on his wireless phone. (Hilarity ensued when I was asking him about stuff he talked on the phone about.)

🤣 😁 That's hilarious!

I do think it's interesting - in my case the frequency is 1310 KHz so the "thousandth-wave" or something comes down to 0.90156 inches. So maybe some part is .9 inches and the signal is strong enough that it resonates! BTW it only happens when I plug into the audio out, not the mic in.

My dad and I used to have a little part 15 micro-AM station in our house, and this phenomenon would manifest itself in almost every piece of electronics we had - except for the computers. Funny thing. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that right now my laptop is sitting on top of another one, so it's elevated about 2 1/2 inches above my metal desk.

keenmaster486 wrote:

My dad and I used to have a little part 15 micro-AM station in our house, and this phenomenon would manifest itself in almost every piece of electronics we had - except for the computers. Funny thing. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that right now my laptop is sitting on top of another one, so it's elevated about 2 1/2 inches above my metal desk.

I read in another post of yours you live in southern Idaho, I experience many of these things too sometimes certain FM bands in the radio frequency will go dead for days or even weeks and on shortwaves AM or C.B. I pick up all sorts of odd things, the I-home at my brothers house will occasionally makes a series of clicks that sound like a Geiger counter if its set to AUX input. Never had a laptop do what yours did I blame the Argonne nuclear labs 🤣

My favorite land line phone I've had since '84-'85 is still in use, and has a very neat "issue". It has a full duplex speaker phone (rare for its time) and it click on and at full volume (which you can hear through the house), anytime somebody with a CB or HAM radio is nearby and acts like a PA system. Anywhere I've moved since I got that thing as a kid, its been with me and had the same problem. Loads of fun at 3 or 4 am when everybody is asleep and all of a sudden a drunk redneck, or random trucker starts blabbing at what sounds like 120db. Over the past 10+ years, since CB's have all but vanished it really hasn't happened that often (and it did it on all 40 channels so it was not picky), and I don't live near anybody with a HAM. So I kinda miss that wake up in the middle of the night to what sounds like somebody broke into my house and brought the police with them. Had a girlfriend that threatened to leave me if I didnt get rid of it. Of course I still have the phone. Good times 😄

I remember my Mega Drive's RF unit "broadcasted" the game's image to neighbors on the channel I've used. Pretty cool back then,

Certain professional microphones, when not shielded properly will become AM radio receivers. Someone I watch on Youtube had that happen to them.

I've had a similar experience happen with my speakers (an old set of Cambridge SoundWorks that includes a sub and two satellites). They've done this twice to my knowledge. They seem to be able to pick up transmissions on walkie talkies, but probably only on specific frequencies, because they've never done it with our walkie talkies. Little hard to make out what people were saying on these since they always come out really quiet, but it's spooky nonetheless when during the middle of the night you start to hear voices. 🤣

keenmaster486 wrote:

So my Windows 98 laptop locked up and I had to restart it. It was plugged into my stereo system. I plugged the power button, and […]
Show full quote

So my Windows 98 laptop locked up and I had to restart it.
It was plugged into my stereo system. I plugged the power
button, and the system turned off. Suddenly, loud and clear
from my stereo set, was the Sean Hannity show on the local
AM station! I checked the stereo: nope, it was still set to "AUX IN".
We live about 5 miles from their transmitter site
so maybe it isn't inconceivable, but I've just never had
something like that happen. I turned the computer back on
and "click" the radio went away.

Is this unprecedented? I've had other bits of electronics do this
sort of thing but never a computer.

My wireless sony headphones frequently pick up some TV transmission on channel 2. Really annoying.

I have mostly composite fillings and only one amalgam, so I'm unable to receive any transmissions (radio or CIA).