We made a hot dog talk... with RF

For more detail—and how we made this experiment safe(ish), see: www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/talking-hot-dog-giv…

If you use two hotdogs, you could have stereo AM radio

Does it speak German if you use a bratwurst?

Try using a pickle. The electricity will excite the sodium ions and cause it to emit orange light.

Reminds me of those stories of people detecting powerful AM signals with their teeth fillings. My physics prof told about when WLW was broadcasting with an effective radiated power of a half-million watts: 1) Ohio drivers on US 42 would go past the tower, and start detecting AM via rusty junctions between body panels of the vehicle. Imagine cresting a hill late at night and hearing a radio hellfire preacher. 2) ionospheric skip propagated the signal to rural Canada whereupon chicken wire would catch the signal and rusty contact points would detect the signal. This interfered with egg production...

I've heard of RF burns referencing HAM equipment, but I didn't know it could be that bad from a broadcast tower. Damn.

Talking to food is harmless, when food talks to you it's time to seek help. Seek help! 😁😆

I always thought it’s called ham-radio, not sausage-radio 🤭

Electrical discharge machining, but with a hotdog as the element.

Back in 2002, I made my professional practices at a radio broadcast company here in my hometown. I visited one of the company’s AM transmitter facilities… was my first time inside of an AM transmitter facility. Then I noticed the antenna area was surrounded by a second fence… so I ask the chief engineer if I could have a close look to the antenna, but he told me about the danger of being near and if I touch the antenna I could get fry…. Didn’t believe him until he took a test rod and approaching a large leaf with the rod, the leaf started to get burned as talking…. A talking burning leaf touching a 50,000 W AM antenna…. Just amazing! Was the XED 1050 kHz AM in Mexicali, Mexico…. So, friends and viewers… the talking hot dog is not a trick… just as the talking leaf I saw ( and heard) it is true. Regards! 👍👍

"Standard hot dog, nothing special". My god man, It's a talking hot dog! The implications, the knowledge we can learn from them! ........ ( I was kinda high when I watched this.)

Technically this is a so-called plasma speaker. The amplitude-modulated electric arc on the hot dog rapidly heats up and displaces the air around it, which creates the sound. Plasma speakers are commonly built out of old TV flyback transformers.

This is amazing, guys. It's funny but also shows the dangerous reality of RF burns, which a lot of folks new to radio might not understand. I should forward this to the local Ham club to use as an example for test prep!

This hotdog complies with Part 15 of the FCC rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) this hotdog may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this hotdog must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

I have a feeling ElectroBoom would find a way to touch it. (Or APPEAR to :P) Also rip dogs harmed in the making of this video.

Certainly an interesting way to show how modulation works! It does illustrate how those stories about fillings in people's teeth picking up radio stations could actually be true.

Need a taller fence!

Is that a ham radio, or an all-beef radio?

Surely this is the start of a new channel called Cooking with the Geerlings!

That fence is waaaaaay to low haha