"Ron" wrote in message
...


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

I see from the way that you have written the word that you heard repeated,
it wasn't just a "hello" as someone might say on the telephone. Using the
word "hello" repeatedly, and breaking it into one long drawn out initial
syllable followed by a second normal speed syllable like in "heeey - lo" is
a very standard way of tuning up a radio transmitter, and can be heard
regularly on the ham bands. That first long syllable can be used to look at
power output from the transmitter - particularly when using SSB - and also
for tuning up a linear amplifier, an atu, or the transmitter's internal
final. Until fairly recently, any half-way decent amateur operator, would
have inserted a couple of "G2XYZ test" in amongst the "hello"s, but the
recent relaxations in the requirement to keep a log, or to actually qualify
for a license rather than cutting one out from the back of a cornflake
packet, (sorry Harry if you're looking in at this group - not intended as a
pop at all M's ...) has resulted in much bad operating practice.

I, like the others, would subscribe to the theory that this was as the
result of a strong radio signal from a ham operator. He could have been
operating mobile from his car just outside your house, or be a fixed station
even a mile away, driving 400 watts into a beam antenna pointing your way.

Of course, there could be a ghost living in your tape recorder, or possibly
in the cassette itself ...

Arfa