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Comment by smooc | Hacker News Reader

O that's interesting. I was able to do the same (tv, refrigerator, etc). I also lived country side and I have hearing loss (35db) and tinnitus (sometimes? moderate?) in my left ear, but seemingly due to a virus infection.

I have never encountered someone else that was able to hear whether a tv was on or not. At what distance could you do that?

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I can hear whether they were on or off, and whether they were tuned to a signal or not.

A video signal synchronized up has a very distinct profile, and people who can hear about 15 khz can hear the sync signals modulating the higher frequency component.

I could at one point, adjust horizontal and vertical hold to a stable signal eyes closed.

Some sets were very loud, and I could hear them rooms away. Walking The Halls in my primary school, I could walk by the classrooms and say they have a TV on oh, and nail it a hundred percent every time.

At least within the house - we moved around a lot, but I lived in a few three storey stonework houses, and could generally tell from 'the other end' of the house if the TV was on.

I don't recall hearing the same noise from fridges though!

It only works with CRT TVs though. It's a 15khz tone, due to magnetostriction in the flyback transformer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer

Some of them used to make noise. Ours stopped for a while when you gave it a whack from above.

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