6 ms·

Radio frequency hearing in humans and its effects (2003)

74 points by baerrie 3y ago

jacknobody 3y ago
Interesting. Then I suppose a broadband RF detector can be made by aligning a tube of brine towards a source. Alternatively a 3D microphone array could be employed in an ocean. External noise floor probably sets the maximum sensitivity, but should be possible to process most external noise out
- baerrie 3y ago
  How does the brine help detect the RF?
  - seamac3 3y ago
    Electrolytes? Better conduction of EMF? Just a guess.
    - jacknobody 3y ago
      In fact a silly idea I had
      - baerrie 3y ago
        There are no silly ideas!
        jacknobody 3y ago
        Thank you :)
    - jacknobody 3y ago
      There the piece suggests that KCl conduction is sufficient to enable the electric- acoustic effect, and brine is sea water, which also conducts. So maybe a matrix of sensitive microphones in the sea can detect the direction of a radio signal.
JPLeRouzic 3y ago
Something similar to the earliest radiowave detectors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Branly#Coherer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Branly#Coherer
timthorn 3y ago
When I was a child I could always hear a high pitched whine from nearby CRTs that adults couldn't. I'd always assumed that to be a mechanical effect due to the varying magnetic fields, but perhaps this was the mechanism?
- orls 3y ago
  That sounds more like coil whine, which is “normal” sound (i.e. moving air) from components vibrating rapidly. That’s not what this paper covers (= more like people’s brains “imagining” sound due to RF triggers) The reason you remember adults not hearing it is because there is a well-documented loss of high-frequency hearing as people age. (Which has even been “weaponised” before; there were stories some years ago about stores blasting high-frequency noise outside to deter loitering teenagers without affecting desirable adult shoppers)
  - alex3305 3y ago
    > Which has even been “weaponised” before; there were stories some years ago about stores blasting high-frequency noise outside to deter loitering teenagers without affecting desirable adult shopper Yeah, they should only work for teenagers. Except for when you are visually impaired like me. I'm almost 35 now and still hear those high frequency noise. It is extremely annoying and even borderline painful. Last year I even got the cops involved when a parked car in front of my apartment constantly emitted a high frequency noise for deterring stone marten and I didn't know who the car belonged to. It was a pretty funny interaction in the end because none of the parties involved (except for me) could even hear the noise. But the car owner admitted they had such a device installed. Resulting in them just moving their car.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    I've heard these sounds all my life, as recently as a few years ago. I'll be 50 next year.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      The ability to perceive high frequency sounds decreases statistically with age -- but that certainly doesn't mean that all people lose the ability to hear them when they're older (and it also doesn't mean that all people can hear them when they're younger). It's a distribution. Probably a normal distribution, but I don't know that for certain.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wigster 3y ago
is this "the hum" some people complain about in cities?
- baerrie 3y ago
  Possibly? In this paper they say the frequency needs to be between 2.4-10,000 Mhz and to be over a certain power threshold. Also the individual needs to be within a certain distance and have sensitive enough hearing (over 5000 hz).
- svilen_dobrev 3y ago
  probably not. There is very low-freq hum in cities (because of cars wheels, airconds, all those rotating+vibrating things), which can be (un)heard if one goes above and then beyond/down edge of some hill at end-of-city - and will stop hearing it (absorbed by earth mass). But it is difficult to "hear" inside the city as your body also vibrates with it..
- NikkiA 3y ago
  No, the hum is around 80Hz normally. This is much higher frequency.
joecool1029 3y ago
In a quiet room I can hear some faint 'tick tick' noises if I place the back of a cellphone against my ear. I live near cell edge so my devices broadcast at max power. These sounds do not happen when wifi is turned on (lower power level) and are not the old GSM signal that gets picked up by analog circuits. If it's not RF, it's likely some other component inside the phone resonating when it transmits. There's sometimes some higher frequency tones mixed in but in general this doesn't sound high pitched. I remember reading something about soviet experiments with humans exposed to strong microwave radiation and hearing it as 'clicks' in their head.... so maybe?
- baerrie 3y ago
  I have actually heard a similar thing when having my head on my pillow with my phone on my mattress. Is yours a spring mattress? Im curious if that could contribute
  - joecool1029 3y ago
    No, my mattress is foam. My guess for you is the pillow isolates noise around the phone so it's easier to hear and the added RF attenuation by bed/mattress material makes it send at higher txpower. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
anonymousiam 3y ago
I've told my kids and some others about my ability to hear certain RF emissions. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. Thanks for posting this paper! I'm glad somebody did the research to prove I'm not crazy.
leon_theremin 3y ago
Schizophrenia is electromagnetic interference caused by terrorists with access to advanced weaponry. The cure is to shield the nervous system by using absorbing material like meat/water or living in a shielded room. Same for Havana Syndrome, EMF hypersensitivity. Read my posts.
- baerrie 3y ago
  Do you have any particular studies you could reference for the connection between schizophrenia and EMF?
  - kragen 3y ago
    being harassed by governmental or other terrorists with access to advanced rf weaponry has been a common delusion in schizophrenia for decades, to the point that aluminum-foil hats are a cliché in popular culture https://youtu.be/urglg3WimHA https://youtu.be/urglg3WimHA
    - pests 3y ago
      This also reminds me of gangstalking which I find very sad. There is a subreddit for it and I can't stand to look at it.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Schzio like symptoms may be caused by some of those things maybe But schizophrenia itself is not solely (or even primarily) based by or explained by electromagnetic waves.
- Kerb_ 3y ago
  So are people with more excess weight less susceptible due to the fat acting as an insulator?
- Kerb_ 3y ago
  >Read my posts Your only other post seems to be entirely unrelated? It talks about silicon CPU trojans and remote computer interference, which is unrelated to radio signaling biological matter, much less neural interaction. And I hate to scare you more but it doesn't even take into account that Ethernet over powerline is a thing and bad actors are just as likely to use PSU trojans to send commands to individual or multiple computers over the power grid if they're doing the same with radio waves https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=36547321 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=36547321
NikkiA 3y ago
I can hear a local FM radio station if the room is quiet but a fan is blowing air. At first I thought it was just one fan that did it, but it seems to be almost any fan. Most of the time what I can hear is just at the edge of my hearing, but the past few weeks it's been loud enough to occasionally ID songs that are playing (they play 'Paradise City' and 'Living on a prayer' quite often, which are very easily ID'ed because of non-language vocals in them - ie the 'Oooooh' parts). I figure that the fact that the antenna is about 500m away is probably a good portion of the reason it's audible, but whether it's actually acoustically audible, or just RF that I'm pseudo-hearing, I don't know. I used to logically assume that when people could 'hear' radio it was only possible with AM because FM modulation shouldn't be demodulated in resonant cavities like AM is, but this station has no AM presence, only FM and DAB.
- steve1977 3y ago
  And you can rule out it’s not some neighbor listening to that station?
  - NikkiA 3y ago
    Not conclusively, I guess, but it's there at any time the conditions are correct (ie, a fan moving air somewhere in the apartment, and otherwise silence). It, however, sounds nothing like an acoustic leakage sounds, I'd describe it more as envelope-shaped white noise then filtered to a range of 'high' acoustic frequencies (maybe 8-14kHz, but I'm guessing); whereas structural leakage of audio has a different profile more in line with being low pass filtered. I have heard leakage audio from the only neighbour that it COULD be from, of their TV and Radio audio, and that has the normal low-pass sounding profile as you'd expect. So while I can't rule out that it could be leaked audio, it 'doesn't sound like it' to me.
    - blincoln 3y ago
      I grew up in a house that was next door to a radio rebroadcasting facility, and we could definitely hear the radio station coming from the walls of our house sometimes, e.g. even their station identification so there was no ambiguity. I assumed it was the house wiring (mostly knob and tube) acting as an antenna. I'm reasonably sure that was AM, though. Was the sound you heard like either of these? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9nGzIzSPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9nGzIzSPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI

74 points by baerrie 3y ago

Interesting. Then I suppose a broadband RF detector can be made by aligning a tube of brine towards a source. Alternatively a 3D microphone array could be employed in an ocean. External noise floor probably sets the maximum sensitivity, but should be possible to process most external noise out

baerrie 3y ago
How does the brine help detect the RF?
- seamac3 3y ago
  Electrolytes? Better conduction of EMF? Just a guess.
  - jacknobody 3y ago
    In fact a silly idea I had
    - baerrie 3y ago
      There are no silly ideas!
      - jacknobody 3y ago
        Thank you :)
  - jacknobody 3y ago
    There the piece suggests that KCl conduction is sufficient to enable the electric- acoustic effect, and brine is sea water, which also conducts. So maybe a matrix of sensitive microphones in the sea can detect the direction of a radio signal.

JPLeRouzic 3y ago

Something similar to the earliest radiowave detectors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Branly#Coherer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Branly#Coherer

timthorn 3y ago

When I was a child I could always hear a high pitched whine from nearby CRTs that adults couldn't. I'd always assumed that to be a mechanical effect due to the varying magnetic fields, but perhaps this was the mechanism?

orls 3y ago
That sounds more like coil whine, which is “normal” sound (i.e. moving air) from components vibrating rapidly. That’s not what this paper covers (= more like people’s brains “imagining” sound due to RF triggers) The reason you remember adults not hearing it is because there is a well-documented loss of high-frequency hearing as people age. (Which has even been “weaponised” before; there were stories some years ago about stores blasting high-frequency noise outside to deter loitering teenagers without affecting desirable adult shoppers)
- alex3305 3y ago
  > Which has even been “weaponised” before; there were stories some years ago about stores blasting high-frequency noise outside to deter loitering teenagers without affecting desirable adult shopper Yeah, they should only work for teenagers. Except for when you are visually impaired like me. I'm almost 35 now and still hear those high frequency noise. It is extremely annoying and even borderline painful. Last year I even got the cops involved when a parked car in front of my apartment constantly emitted a high frequency noise for deterring stone marten and I didn't know who the car belonged to. It was a pretty funny interaction in the end because none of the parties involved (except for me) could even hear the noise. But the car owner admitted they had such a device installed. Resulting in them just moving their car.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  I've heard these sounds all my life, as recently as a few years ago. I'll be 50 next year.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    The ability to perceive high frequency sounds decreases statistically with age -- but that certainly doesn't mean that all people lose the ability to hear them when they're older (and it also doesn't mean that all people can hear them when they're younger). It's a distribution. Probably a normal distribution, but I don't know that for certain.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

wigster 3y ago

is this "the hum" some people complain about in cities?

baerrie 3y ago
Possibly? In this paper they say the frequency needs to be between 2.4-10,000 Mhz and to be over a certain power threshold. Also the individual needs to be within a certain distance and have sensitive enough hearing (over 5000 hz).
svilen_dobrev 3y ago
probably not. There is very low-freq hum in cities (because of cars wheels, airconds, all those rotating+vibrating things), which can be (un)heard if one goes above and then beyond/down edge of some hill at end-of-city - and will stop hearing it (absorbed by earth mass). But it is difficult to "hear" inside the city as your body also vibrates with it..
NikkiA 3y ago
No, the hum is around 80Hz normally. This is much higher frequency.

joecool1029 3y ago

In a quiet room I can hear some faint 'tick tick' noises if I place the back of a cellphone against my ear. I live near cell edge so my devices broadcast at max power. These sounds do not happen when wifi is turned on (lower power level) and are not the old GSM signal that gets picked up by analog circuits. If it's not RF, it's likely some other component inside the phone resonating when it transmits. There's sometimes some higher frequency tones mixed in but in general this doesn't sound high pitched. I remember reading something about soviet experiments with humans exposed to strong microwave radiation and hearing it as 'clicks' in their head.... so maybe?

baerrie 3y ago
I have actually heard a similar thing when having my head on my pillow with my phone on my mattress. Is yours a spring mattress? Im curious if that could contribute
- joecool1029 3y ago
  No, my mattress is foam. My guess for you is the pillow isolates noise around the phone so it's easier to hear and the added RF attenuation by bed/mattress material makes it send at higher txpower. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

anonymousiam 3y ago

I've told my kids and some others about my ability to hear certain RF emissions. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. Thanks for posting this paper! I'm glad somebody did the research to prove I'm not crazy.

leon_theremin 3y ago

Schizophrenia is electromagnetic interference caused by terrorists with access to advanced weaponry. The cure is to shield the nervous system by using absorbing material like meat/water or living in a shielded room. Same for Havana Syndrome, EMF hypersensitivity. Read my posts.

baerrie 3y ago
Do you have any particular studies you could reference for the connection between schizophrenia and EMF?
- kragen 3y ago
  being harassed by governmental or other terrorists with access to advanced rf weaponry has been a common delusion in schizophrenia for decades, to the point that aluminum-foil hats are a cliché in popular culture https://youtu.be/urglg3WimHA https://youtu.be/urglg3WimHA
  - pests 3y ago
    This also reminds me of gangstalking which I find very sad. There is a subreddit for it and I can't stand to look at it.
mock-possum 3y ago
Schzio like symptoms may be caused by some of those things maybe But schizophrenia itself is not solely (or even primarily) based by or explained by electromagnetic waves.
Kerb_ 3y ago
So are people with more excess weight less susceptible due to the fat acting as an insulator?
Kerb_ 3y ago
>Read my posts Your only other post seems to be entirely unrelated? It talks about silicon CPU trojans and remote computer interference, which is unrelated to radio signaling biological matter, much less neural interaction. And I hate to scare you more but it doesn't even take into account that Ethernet over powerline is a thing and bad actors are just as likely to use PSU trojans to send commands to individual or multiple computers over the power grid if they're doing the same with radio waves https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=36547321 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=36547321

NikkiA 3y ago

I can hear a local FM radio station if the room is quiet but a fan is blowing air. At first I thought it was just one fan that did it, but it seems to be almost any fan. Most of the time what I can hear is just at the edge of my hearing, but the past few weeks it's been loud enough to occasionally ID songs that are playing (they play 'Paradise City' and 'Living on a prayer' quite often, which are very easily ID'ed because of non-language vocals in them - ie the 'Oooooh' parts). I figure that the fact that the antenna is about 500m away is probably a good portion of the reason it's audible, but whether it's actually acoustically audible, or just RF that I'm pseudo-hearing, I don't know. I used to logically assume that when people could 'hear' radio it was only possible with AM because FM modulation shouldn't be demodulated in resonant cavities like AM is, but this station has no AM presence, only FM and DAB.

steve1977 3y ago
And you can rule out it’s not some neighbor listening to that station?
- NikkiA 3y ago
  Not conclusively, I guess, but it's there at any time the conditions are correct (ie, a fan moving air somewhere in the apartment, and otherwise silence). It, however, sounds nothing like an acoustic leakage sounds, I'd describe it more as envelope-shaped white noise then filtered to a range of 'high' acoustic frequencies (maybe 8-14kHz, but I'm guessing); whereas structural leakage of audio has a different profile more in line with being low pass filtered. I have heard leakage audio from the only neighbour that it COULD be from, of their TV and Radio audio, and that has the normal low-pass sounding profile as you'd expect. So while I can't rule out that it could be leaked audio, it 'doesn't sound like it' to me.
  - blincoln 3y ago
    I grew up in a house that was next door to a radio rebroadcasting facility, and we could definitely hear the radio station coming from the walls of our house sometimes, e.g. even their station identification so there was no ambiguity. I assumed it was the house wiring (mostly knob and tube) acting as an antenna. I'm reasonably sure that was AM, though. Was the sound you heard like either of these? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9nGzIzSPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo9nGzIzSPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI