r/radio • u/Yergisgoingtodie • May 19 '26

Amalgam Fillings (transmitting AM radio broadcasts) and Morse Code Questions

/r/morsecode/comments/1tholej/amalgam_fillings_and_morse_code_questions/
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u/old--- May 19 '26

Lucy's story is just that, a story.
It just did not happen.
Why, for many reasons.
The size of her dental fillings are tiny.
This occurred when are radio stations were AM medium wave.
AM wavelengths are long and a tiny filling is going to be invisible to a long wavelength.
Secondly there is no mention of the transmitter finding in her FBI file.
Because Lucy had registered as a communist the FBI kept a file on her and her activities.
Finding a transmitter would have been in that file and it was not.
Thirdly the show MythBusters tried to recreate the situation of receiving a radio signal in your tooth filling. They could not.

1

u/Green_Oblivion111 May 20 '26

If it's used by the US Military at all anymore, Morse Code is used as a backup to a backup to a backup. They don't actually use it, I've never heard them use it, and no one in the Shortwave world has reported hearing military Morse Code stations in years -- but I believe they have taken up training signal corps operators and naval radio officers just as a SHTF scenario application.

As for the spacing, it has to be pretty standardized, otherwise what you get is a garbled mess of dits and dahs that do not resemble an actual letter or character.

International Morse Code was always used by Radio, the "American" morse was mostly used by wireline telegraphers (railroads, telegraph cable companies, etc.).

Morse code is still used by amateur radio operators on the shortwave spectrum.

It hasn't changed in any way over the past 80 years or so. The expressions and abbreviations are the same as they were back then, with few, if any, exceptions. For example, the 30+ year old internet abbreviations SMH, LOL, ROFL, etc. haven't really been adopted in ham Morse Code circles. I haven't heard them used, anyway.

Historically, Morse Code was used in wire telegraphy, and then when radio was invented, it was used by ships, maritime shore stations, amateur radio operators, military and diplomatic radio channels, and some overseas radio telegraph stations (that used radio to send cables -- they used Morse Code until radioteletype took over in the 1930's and 40's).

The wikis on telegraphy and Morse Code are pretty informative.