I picked up radio on an old metal dental filling back in the day. Was enough to subtly vibrate it and make it audible to me in my bedroom when it was quiet.
It's not bas extreme as a filling, but I've encountered several accidental radio receivers over the years. A solar powered race car I worked on had a problem with going to 100% throttle whenever someone transmitted on a handheld radio nearby. A stereo audio pre-amp I built from a kit would readily pick up AM stations. When I first visited my in-laws home, I discovered that their subwoofer was preaching evangelical gospel.
I've got a few guitar distortion pedals that can pick up AM when the knobs are in a certain position. It's fun to turn it on in between songs at a gig when we're checking our tuning.
> The gold and amalgam tooth fillings did not act as an antenna or point-contact transistor when placed in a real human skull. Explanations for the supposed Morse code pickup included a Galvanic cell reaction between two teeth fillings and saliva.
> This myth was first claimed by Lucille Ball in an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, with the fillings explanation offered by Buster Keaton.
Myth Busters was great. But for some of their tests you need to keep in mind they built a model with limitations (such as their assumptions) and tried to replicate a claim. In certain cases they were unable to replicate either due to an incomplete model or trying to replicate something that was never published as science in the first place. In their case the endless shape and size of fillings, location, signal frequency and strength, other things that could amplify, etc.
I know it happened because it happened to me once. With a sound mind, unencumbered by substance, and able to test. I could never replicate outside of the one time. But during that time if I moved my head one way (I assume my saliva and contents of it moving) it would go away. Moving it back, the sound was clear. Very tinny, vibrational if that makes sense, but there. Coming from the inside. I remember the weather from that day even as it was such a weird thing.
But I could never replicate.
They are right in saying they could not replicate. But it’s theoretically possible to create a semiconductor with saliva solution and a filling and pick up a strong enough signal in a certain position.
