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jacquesmtoday at 6:33 AM2 repliesview on HN

That's not because of the frequency of the guitar but because the guitar functions as a very nice antenna (long piece of metal (the strong) + a coil forming a tuned circuit), what happens is that your hands create a very temporary partial diode where you touch the strings!

Such naturally occurring diodes are an interesting phenomenon (in this case: the salt in your sweat interacting with the steel of the strings) and were the basis of the very first radio receivers after the 'Coherer' (which is a word that has fallen out of use so far that it registers as a spelling error on my browser!).


Replies

nicolaslemtoday at 10:46 AM

That may be one explanation, but more broadly with analog audio it is actually quite difficult NOT to end up with an AM receiver.

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jacquesmtoday at 10:46 AM

Too late to edit: strong => strings. sorry!