Frequencies

So all radios have the facility to receive radio signals... and as most radios operate on the AM and FM bands they both have different operating frequencies... measured in kilohertz (kHz), megahertz (MHz)... through to the gigahertz (GHz).

Now most, if not all, man-made 'spirit boxes' operate using the basic chassis and components that are all found in common radios.  The Radio Shack 12-469 was just a radio (FM and AM) that was 'adapted' to non-stop scan through the station of all frequencies in a blind hope that 'the other side' was listening in and would perhaps use the white noise to communicate to the living.

Same goes for both the SB7 and SB11... and also the myriad of other Radio Shack radios and any other make that someone was able to break the scanning facility to enable it to constantly scan.  These are all just FM/AM radios that receive only FM and AM signals.

So it is with these factors we can easily establish that the average operating frequencies for radio are:

• AM - between 535 kHz and 1.605 MHz

• FM - between 88 and 108 MHz

Other radio wave frequencies are:

• Short wave radio - 5.9 to 26.1 MHz

• Citizens band (CB) radio - 26.96 to 27.41 MHz

• Television stations (channels 2 to 6) - 54 to 88 MHz

• Television stations (channels 7 to 13) - 174 to 220 MHz

Now note the close proximity from TV channels 2 to 6 up to the 88 MHz frequency... that is putting things very close.  But FM does not go below 88 MHz to ensure no contamination of frequencies, but that is still very close.

And also we have to identify and note that the SB7 (and quite possibly the SB11) starts at 76MHz in the FM ranging of scanning... so it is very possible to have some kind of bleed-through from TV transmissions poking in during a session (76 to 88 MHz).  And to remember that TV transmissions still come through an old-fashioned aerial antenna it is safe to presume that some scattering of TV transmissions could be picked up.

Frequency Scanning

It is a given that most if not all people know how a radio scans through frequencies and stations when you are trying to find your favourite station.  Well let's take Radio 2 (in the UK) for an example... it's range is from 88 to 91 MHz on the FM band.  This is depending upon which part of the UK you are located - have you ever driven from one place to another and you had to keep re-tuning the radio to keep the station on?

Gone are those days with RDS systems as the radio auto-tunes for you to the strongest signal to keep the station going with out too much interruption.  And as the working of a spirit box does not allow for RDS and auto-tuning, as it is a complete self-continuous scanning device as it sweeps through all channels and frequencies (as it is designed to do so), so one could see that it could pick up some transmissions through the given range of any radio station in or around these frequencies.

So back to the possibilities of receiving spurious radio chatter... remembering that Radio 2 operates between 88 and 91 MHz on the FM band.  It is possible that on the weaker signals of this range you might pick up some chatter, albeit weak in both signal and volume, but it could bleed through.

EXAMPLE: Using a P-SB7 (due to the LCD  readout) if we start at 88 MHz and then scan manually, the next frequency is 88.1, then 88.2, 88.3, etc. and as it goes up in increments of 0.1.  As in the below graph - let's say the strongest frequency for a given station is 88.7 MHz... now if one were to manually scan upwards from 88 MHz at around 88.3 MHz you would hear a shift in static as the station tries to tune in, then as we go further up it becomes more clearer until we reach the actual station of 88.7 MHz (clear broadcasting and receiving).

So then we carry on and the same thing occurs until the station can no longer be heard (in the example at 89.2 MHz).  So this can lead us to believe that on 'actual' anywhere from 88.4 MHz to 89.1 MHz the station could be received on the tuner of the SB7... with a 'potential' to be received from 88.3 MHz to 89.2 MHz.

After doing a basic stopwatch test I found that on a 300ms sweep-rate it took about 2.2 seconds to cover the 'actual' range and 2.9 seconds on the 'potential' range.  Quicken the sweep-rate and the timings are thus reduced - at a 100ms sweep-rate we have 0.7 seconds and 0.9 seconds respectively.

Now it has always been a quote from some people that say: "1 second is a very long time"... and in the case of scanning through radio frequencies in order to try and get communication with spirits it is a very long time indeed!  One could say a few words in the space of a second... and going by the favourite '150ms' sweep-rate that most opt for (possibly due to it being Zak Bagans' chosen sweep-rate) it is quite apparent that the majority of any so-called alleged spirit voices being heard are merely just radio transmissions.