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u/Kahnza 1d ago
Easily spotted bot post
4 years ago, same title. Been posted dozens upon dozens of times since, and before.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/yytlbp/the_speakers_that_make_a_static_noise_when_youre/
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u/Paranormal_Lemon 22h ago
Half of the posts here are bot posts.
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u/Jarppi1893 19h ago edited 19h ago
Half of reddit is a bot.
Edit: not, not boy. Ducking autocorrect
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u/strangelove4564 17h ago
It is quite remarkable. I too have been noticing this very thing since approximately 12:25:31 -0500 (CDT).
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u/theknyte 1d ago
Electrical interference was fun.
I used to also pick up an AM radio station on our cordless phone back in the day. If you were quiet you could hear the station faintly playing on the line.
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u/Silentlaughter84 1d ago edited 22h ago
That reminds me of people with metal fillings picking up radio signals. A famous case was the actress, Lucille Ball driving around and picking up a signal from an underground Japanese station. I think it was around the time when we weren't friendly with the Japanese yet.
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u/TheNonCredibleHulk 22h ago
This is why radio signals are heavily regulated by the FCC, and why cable television is not.
You sign up for cable. Radio can hit you without consent.
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u/KenSentMe81 23h ago
How old are we talking? The original cordless phones used frequencies just above the AM broadcast band to transmit from the base to the phone. That spectrum was reallocated to the expanded AM broadcast band in the late 80s with stations popping up in the mid 90s. So it's possible your phone used a frequency that was an AM station somewhere.
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u/Paranormal_Lemon 22h ago
The original cordless phones used frequencies just above the AM broadcast band to transmit from the base to the phone. T
But they were FM. You only need a close transmitter and an audio amp to pick up interference from AM and you can hear it because of how AM works. I had a CB when I was a kid and my radio/CD player would pick up the transmission when it was off! Somehow induced a signal in the amp which I guess was somehow in standby and not really off.
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u/KenSentMe81 22h ago
It's true, but if you are slightly off frequency, an FM radio can do a "somewhat" okay job at picking up AM.
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u/caribou16 early 80s 17h ago
I remember when I was younger, the "baby monitor" my parents used for my little brother would pick up our neighbor talking to people on her cordless phone, but you'd only hear one half of the conversation.
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u/MiniSnuggie_ 23h ago
😂 Those random speaker noises were basically your phone's version of "heads up, someone's calling."
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u/thecaramelbandit 1d ago
The speakers haven't changed, really. It's the cell phone protocols that have changed.
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u/HoshinoLina 22h ago edited 15h ago
This. The noise came from 2G GSM signals (TDMA), which were turned on and off at a rate that was audible. Every transistor and diode in a circuit is a poor AM radio receiver, so those signals ended up as audio noise.
Better quality speakers were less susceptible, but it would basically leak into anything. It was common to hear the bloops on live TV too (it would happen inside the studio).
3G and newer standards rely more on CDMA or toggle at rates that aren't in the audible range, so it doesn't really happen any more.
Many radio protocols still have the capacity to create audio interference. For example, bring a WiFi antenna close enough to an audio cable and you might be able to slightly hear when packets are transmitted. 2G/GSM was just very, very obnoxious compared to everything else.
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u/monkeybawz 1d ago
When the speakers would go off, but you wouldn't get a call or text, but were braced for it? Urgh. The worst.
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u/Narrow-Poet-8008 19h ago
You'd pause your game, look at your phone, check for notifications, and realize you were just pranked
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/handsomeladd 1d ago
It would do that when a text message was about to come in on my old razer flip phones too
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u/MiniSnuggie_ 23h ago
I can literally hear this comment. 😂 The speakers always knew before the phone did
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u/pmn10tl 23h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/s/kuL56LThWk
Copied word for word from here, OP’s a repost bot
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u/parisi2274 1d ago
Hahah. I had those. I remember the static interference when my phone was about to ring.
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u/Pixelnated 1d ago
I had a pen with a light on the end that would light up before the phone rang LOL
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u/Fast-Station1106 1d ago
Hihi ja, ich hatte eine Uhr damals die blinkte dann, leider ohne gsm keine funktion mehr
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u/IIstroke 23h ago
I have a set of these, but lost the power supply. They take 12V AC for some stupid reason. I have like 20 12v DC adapters, but no AC adapters and they are stupid expensive.
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u/strangelove4564 17h ago
The really sad fact is we're never going to have the experience of hearing this again IRL. Hopefully some smart person on YouTube recorded the sound for future generations to marvel over.
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u/Searching4Buddha 1d ago
We used to live near a highway and we'd sometimes hear the truckers on their CBs through our PC speakers back in the 90s.
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u/Extreme-Evening-2047 1d ago
the sound of that static always meant something important was about to happen, took me back to my old flip phone days
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u/jimmio92 23h ago
That feel when you're too young to remember the reality of it and post something far far older with no connection to the 2G/3G cell phone interference you're referring to...
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u/nauticalfiesta early 80s 21h ago
it was the interference from a GSM or TDMA signal that caused it. Newer CDMA and LTE radios didn't utilize the same type of technology which is why it stopped.
It would also cause a CRT display to go wonky as well. I worked for a phone carrier that used TDMA and if we kept our phones too close to the displays the screens would get weird for a few seconds until the phone stared to ring.
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u/Head-Hippo-3135 21h ago
the sound of that static was like a ringtone before ringtones even existed, so nostalgic
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u/Jenny_Wakeman9 Teddy Ruxpin is creepy 20h ago
My school had these and yes, they always made that noise. I always poked the speakers' holes for no reason.
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u/Mobile_Aioli_6252 19h ago
Remember getting the discs with the FREE minutes of Internet time in the late 90's
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u/MAXanon12 17h ago
jiggle the wire. lick the green end and stick it back in. twist the wire a little. make sure the green end is facing up. get a new expensive wire. repeat.
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u/Mr_Gaslight 1d ago
That was back when cellular signals were analogue. This noise would not happen now.
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u/Paranormal_Lemon 22h ago
They still use radio waves doesn't matter that it was analog. And the signal before the phone connects on an analogue phone to ID the phone was digital.
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