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It could absolutely happen accidentally. Any bad contact between two conductors can cause a non-linear junction that can detect an AM radio signal.

TFA refers to, presumably an FM signal (because of the 3.3 meter band and what's usually broadcast there), so I doubt this story a bit.

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Yep I mentioned that in a comment below, an accidental semiconductor IS possible, but that wasn't my point really. I get the arguers point though, a headboard implies accidental, I wasn't thinking of it that way. But anyway, as we've established, both improvised and accidental are possible and documented.

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