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Listening radio with grass

ateijeiro0 · 1.7M views · 2012-12-31 · 1:39

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Overview

Two experimenters hold blades of grass near a radio transmitter antenna and hear the AM station through the arc between antenna and grass. It is a short, informal demonstration of unintentional AM demodulation.

On Hacker News

HN commenters bring it out whenever AM radio, strong transmitters or accidental demodulation comes up, as the classic example of grass playing radio.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2017–2026

Topics

Electronics & circuit designEveryday physics & science demos
Search by tags
am radioradio towerdemodulationrfexperiment

What people said

HPsquared · 2026-06 · Reference

With enough power anything is possible... If you put random vegetation directly on the radio mast (NOT recommended!), it makes sound directly- [VIDEO]

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acchow · 2026-03 · Joke / meme

We probably shouldn't deprecate AM for emergency broadcasts given you can listen to AM radio with grass [VIDEO]

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HPsquared · 2025-10 · Reference

(too late to edit) I remembered this example of "unintentional amplitude modulation" of a strong AM RF signal: touching vegetation against a (presumably AM) radio mast. "Listening radio with grass" [VIDEO] [LINK]

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Sources

Video by ateijeiro0, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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