In the case of the "haunted" tape recorder, the RF
probably leaked into the microphone circuitry; the recording
electronics "detected" the audio and mixed it with what you were
saying and then recorded the combined signal onto the tape.


Hmmm.... in this case, the signals weren't combined: the extraneous
signal totally wiped out what I had taped for about twenty seconds.
And what I don't get is-- well, there are a couple of things that I
don't get now that I think about it.

First, is where such a signal would come from. There are no hams or
other sources close by. As many times as I have made tapes over the
years, this is the only time such a thing has happened.

And secondly, why just the one word ("Hel-lo...") repeated six times.
Someone transmitting would have produced a conversation or at least a
part of a conversation in an inadvertent transmission. Hello is sort
of "hailing frequencies open, Captain" sort of thing. The few rare
times that sound has come from a dead TV speaker, that had been
numbers and other things that would indicate part of a larger
transmission; this seemed to be... complete.

I read somewhere that something vaguely similar happened here in
Portland about thirty years ago when an organ at some local church
started picking up weird signals, but this is a little *too* weird. ;-
(

Ron