Electrical engineering student demands his entitled neighbor turn down her loud radio in the early morning, after she refuses, he jams the signals to the radio, ensuring she has no choice: 'Suddenly silence from the neighbor’s radio'

Author image for Emma Saven
Emma Saven
Aug 19, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

Listen, I'm certainly no expert on the ins and outs of electrical engineering or anything technical, to say the least. Sometimes I genuinely find it intimidating to connect my AirPods to my laptop. And the worst part about it, whenever you ask someone for a bit of help, it works on their first try, every time…I'm starting to think my fingers are haunted…

And then you get those who just get it…those tech gurus who know how to construct and then deconstruct any piece of technology just for fun. What makes this skill even more impressive is that they can use it as a secret weapon…always ready to fumble their opponents, or in this case, their loud neighbors… When this noisy, entitled neighbor refuses to turn down the volume on her radio, before the birds have even risen and formed into the correct pitch, this electrical engineering student did what he does best…Mess up the frequency of her radio to ensure that the noise will be put to bed, like most people before 6 am!

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  • This story teaches us a few very important lessons: 1.) Know your neighbors 2.) Study electrical engineering 3.) If 2 is not applicable, find someone who studied electrical engineering and become their friend… After a polite request was denied, alongside a failed attempt at involving the landlord, the only choice this neighbor had left was to either never sleep again or simply jam a few harmless signals!

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    Man pushing his earphones inside his ears
    via dapaimages

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    Thin Walls and a Frequency Generator

    I number of years ago I lived in Montreal in a rather thin walled apartment. My neighbour's kitchen was against my bedroom
    via octo23
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    and at some point the absolute delight of a human being started turning her radio on shortly before 6:00am.
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    I tried to talk to her and asked for her to simply move it away from the shared wall or not use it, no change. I sent a registered letter
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    to the landlord asking for some action to be taken, but again nothing changed. At the time I was studying
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    Electrical Engineering and learning about how radios worked. Internally to the radio whatever frequency you are
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    listening to gets converted to what is known as an Intermediate Frequency and then the rest of the circuitry amplifies and filters this one frequency.
    via octo23
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    I had under used frequency generators at work so I asked if I could borrow one for a bit, I got a few strange looks and questions,
    via octo23
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    Woman dancing in the kitchen
    via gettyimages

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    but ultimately got permission to borrow one for a few weeks. I set it up in my bedroom, did the basic settings for an unmodulated
    via octo23
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    frequency matching the intermediate frequency for the neighbour's radio, jammed a rudimentary antenna in the back
    via octo23
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    and went to bed. When I was woken by the neighbour's radio instead of just jamming in ear plugs and trying to go back to sleep, I jumped up and switched
    via octo23
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    on the frequency generator. Suddenly silence from the neighbour's radio. I then modulated my signal with a 1kHz
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    tone that was extremely annoying, but my ear plugs filtered it out. Knowing that this could interfere with others and also be illegal I
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    tested it against my own radio which was about five meters away and it wasn't impacted. Was it better shielding against my attack
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    or was it the distance? I didn't care the neighbour stopped using her radio in her kitchen and I returned the frequency generator after a couple of weeks.
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    Shelf decor and a vintage radio
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    GrrrYouBeast Excellent. My petty heart approves of this.
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    Naive_Figure188 Had a friend in college and they set up their own pirate radio station back in the late 70's. The gave it up when they noticed panel trucks with antennas roaming their neighborhood (they were about 1/4 mile from each other.) It was like a scene out of a movie. FAAFO
    via Naive_Figure188
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    hrudyusa As a fellow EE, I LOVE this story. Who says that there isn't a technological solution to every problem. When I was commuting via train, I considered getting a cellphone jammer so I can get some peace in the morning.
    via hrudyusa
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    3VikingBoys Ah, the old unmoderated frequency ploy works every time. Well played Octo23, well played.
    via 3VikingBoys
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    Ok-Active-8321 I did the same thing!, except I x-mitted at the carrier frequency. Neighbor couldn't get anything, so he changed the station. I retuned to match. Worked well for a couple of weeks. Sadly, he then started playing records, or it may have been cassette tapes. (Yeah, I'm old.)
    via Ok-Active-8321
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    Tilda Maree Maybe I'm really d b but I've re-read through all that frequency mumbo- jumbo and I still don't know what happened to the neighbours radio. Did it go off? Turn into static?
    via TildaMaree

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radio disrupt Music neighbors students neighborhood engineering askreddit neighborhood-drama neighborhood-stories horrible-neighbors noise entitled loud entitled people frequency
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