Today I tricked some people into taking their toasters apart. I never thought I would open up a journal entry with that sentence, but it’s true. Ever since we made the video in 2003 that showed us hijacking fast food drive-thru frequencies, people have been asking us how we did it. So after 4 years of being asked, I finally made a video that explains how we did it. The only thing is, I lied. The video tells people they need to take apart their toaster and pull out a crystal from the circuit board. And toasters don’t have crystals in them.
I submitted the video to a few blogs that I subscribe to and two of the picked it up – Gizmodo and Consumerist. These are pretty major sites and they managed to bring in more than 8,000 hits to the video. 82 people have favored the video, putting it at #19 on Youtube’s Most Viewed today and #15 on YouTube’s Top Favorites.
The comments on each of those pages are pretty funny. It took 6 hours on both sites for anyone to finally call B.S. on the video. One guy claims he took apart toasters and curling irons, looking for the crystal. And a guy chatting with me earlier today send me a link to an Ebay auction for a CB Radio, asking if that one would work with the mod. So not only are people going to take apart their toasters, but they’re also going to be buying CB radios. I am the biggest jerk ever! I’ve been giggling uncontrollably all day over all this. I can’t wait for the angry emails to start pouring in.
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anon
March 20, 2008 at 5:47 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
What style! This is awesome…
Rob T Firefly
March 20, 2008 at 7:13 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
This is absolutely brilliant in every way.
Jenn
March 20, 2008 at 9:01 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Favorited, rated and commented.
MatthewT
March 20, 2008 at 9:06 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Wait so like even buying the crystal online and sticking it in the radio wouldn’t work?
Oh you so crazy Brad. Also the Gizmodo story had like 50 points on reddit last I checked
Tachyon
March 20, 2008 at 9:23 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
One hint in the video is that while you are theoretically demonstrating the device at the drive through to prove it works, the audio we hear at this point is old audio from the original prank.
nicolle
March 20, 2008 at 1:30 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Tach…that’s true, and we know it because we’ve seen the old clip several times. we’re rather dedicated phone losers like that. ;) however, i think it was edited in about as smoothly as it could be, and will definitely fool a lot of people into buying CBs and destroying their toasters.
nova
March 20, 2008 at 2:12 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
you are a bad, bad, man…
props to ya!
pi>cactus
March 21, 2008 at 1:39 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
lmfao, i was actually gonna try this.
CACTUS!
meatwad
March 22, 2008 at 5:54 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Brilliant. I bet the how-to took about ten takes to do without cracking up.
Dustin
March 22, 2008 at 8:35 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks asshole
Coco
March 23, 2008 at 6:47 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You bastard! I’m glad I checked your site, I was gonna take my toaster apart tomorrow. I gutted…was looking forward to tormenting the local McDonalds.
aaron7
March 24, 2008 at 6:37 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
lol you could tell when you were desoldering the crystal from the toaster… no quality control would have left such long leads on a component!
Entropy_king
March 27, 2008 at 9:56 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
wow, I fell. That was fun, but seriously now, how the FCK do you do this, I have a wonderful taco bell nearby that needs this to happen to them.
drew
March 31, 2008 at 1:29 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
1) found that crystal in like one second http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/395978-crystal-6-5536mhz-12pf-hc-49-ua-ecs-65-12-1.html
.40 cents
2) a toaster obviously has no reason to have a crystal in it unless maybe it had some kind of timer in it
although theoretically you could change the frequency of a cb i really doubt it would be that easy
hey wait dont cbs run off of am?
Og Style
March 31, 2008 at 2:59 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You had me tricked. I found it hard to belive that crystals were in toasters. Also if you add 3x the channels to the cb where where these at. CB’s only go to 40 and even if it go’s higher it will stop at 99 not 120. Unless you add switches and call them side bands.
Hos
March 31, 2008 at 3:52 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Drew – he admitted that it was a hoax in this entry so why are you trying to debunk it? All your proving is that you’re an idiot.
Astrochess
March 31, 2008 at 8:51 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
This was a pretty good prank, but couldn’t you have waited until April fools’?
ViolentJ
April 3, 2008 at 3:53 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Well I will say this..
It was a nice prank I’ll give you that.
All though I knew there wasn’t a crystal inside of a toaster I took my old toaster from years back apart to see what really controls it anyway, so it didn’t cost me shit!
The best part about this is that nobody understands the radio wave cycle so tripling the frequency on a conventional CB radio would be way over the alloted basic 30MHz freq most restraunt headsets work on. channel 1 on a CB is 27.965 MHz there for tripling the frequency to 83.085 Mhz not even in ham band.
Great prank Brad
and to all you suckers out there…
Do some research before you get nailed!
ViolentJ
April 3, 2008 at 3:58 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
OG Style…
he also said in his video that it will increase the power by 3 times not the channels you idiot.
Increasing power only gives a CB an upstep on frequency not channel directory.
There for meaning you’d still have 40 channels running at a totaly different frequency allocation.
And yes CB’s run on AM Modulation. So changing a crystal will obviously change the freq. but then you have to re-tune the TX and RX within the radio itself.
Experiment enough with it and soon enough you will find some cool shit
oooo
April 4, 2008 at 3:56 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
HAH! Wow… I can’t believe people would be so foolish to believe that. Pretty funny non-the-less. Pretty simple logic, (Band Pass Filter+Drive thru’s usually use FM + WTF would toasters have crystals for). I like the ‘safety device’ explanation tho ;).
josh
April 11, 2008 at 4:16 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Im gonna kick your ass
lol
April 14, 2008 at 7:53 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
can you have like five crystals in it at once becase i have alot for a talkabout walky taalky to hack
dumbass
May 7, 2008 at 4:47 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
you are an ass…i took apart two toasters and bought a cb…god damn what a waste of money…
i hate you
May 7, 2008 at 7:03 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
you gay faggot wtf is your fucking problem you fucking asshole. this isnt funny, its a sick trick. man has dreamed since mcdonalds was created to try and play pranks on the customers, and you gave thousands false hope. i hope you enjoyed yourself because i am a priest and I will see to it that you spend the rest of eternity in hell.
Razel
May 16, 2008 at 7:52 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Nice try Brad, if that is your real name. I know the truth, this really does work but the government leaned on you to call it a hoax and you caved. The government doesn’t want us to know that we can interfere so easily with drive-thrus cos their spys use them for dead drops.
I tried it myself and it worked. I hear the voices coming through loud and clear. Now please excuse me while i put my foil hat back on.
I wish you a very good Cactus.
Eric
July 3, 2008 at 3:23 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“I hate you” –
You’re a fucking idiot… and you’re a Priest? Yeah… OK…
Ryan
September 14, 2008 at 9:41 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I don’t see why someone would be surprised that someone that plays pranks on people would want to play pranks on other people. A bit like trusting a thief with money. Still done pretty well though.
murderface
September 28, 2008 at 9:48 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
The funny thing is that I believed it because I’m like “Well he’s never lied to us in 10 years without saying so, so why would he start now?”
that’ll teach me. Good Prank.
peter b
October 1, 2008 at 5:06 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
it is pretty funny how many people fell for it, i knew it was fake, i just sat back and showed people i knew about it, and watched them fall for it, it was really funny, i want to say congratulations, this is the best scam i have seen yet, you should do more like this, here’s an idea, tell them that takeing out the ram in a old computer, cutting it in half, and putting it back in increases the cpu speed be 30 percent, sompthing like that lol
Epiphany2000
November 26, 2008 at 10:26 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Nice prank. I went to goodwill & bought a hairdryer & took it apart. It had no crystal, so I put it back together & planned to exchange it for a toaster tomorrow. Meanwhile, I was about to buy several crystals on Mouser.com and two Realistic TRC-207 units for $40 on eBay.
So you (only) cost me $5 (which I will apply towards a used suit at goodwill tomorrow), and a couple hours of my time.
“Fool me once, you can’t get fooled again”
– George W. Bush
Obama
December 20, 2008 at 6:58 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You got me, I will get you Feb 20th
john
January 5, 2009 at 12:01 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
heres the deal folks.as with any great modification.someone will give you the basics,and leave out a few details for security sake.keep tinkering.it works.thats the scary part.
john
January 5, 2009 at 12:08 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
.i made a quick disconect so i could experiment w diff crystals w/o soldering each time.on a digital radio,when u increase the crystal freq,you will have about 3 channels per each channel the radio has.youll turn channel 1 three times b4 you get channel 2.and so on.think about it.ive heard everything from washing machines to garage door openers.just tinker.but remember not too invest a ton
of money in learning the art.
Erik
March 1, 2009 at 11:32 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I had the exact same radio u used and as soon as I saw the clip on YouTube I just looked inside, u picked a dumb spot to put the fake crystal but it worked. But on your vid it looks like you really did do it, so did you?
donotreply
May 29, 2009 at 2:41 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Why would anyone ever think there was a crystal in a toaster? Does the toaster transmit things? lol And actually I have found a few digital transmitters that can be slightly augmented to transmit on different bands. I was going to try it on my local White Castle, so I went in there to scope the head gear of the window operator and low and behold, I can buy the headsets they were using at walmart. See sometimes over thinking is bad, just trust companies to use cheap consumer grade equipment and buy it. lol
FU
July 16, 2009 at 10:54 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!!! WANT ME TO BEAT THE SH!T
OUT OF U. FUCKIN LIL BITCH ASS PUSSY
glenn
October 11, 2009 at 2:39 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Haha, a crystal as a safety device? wtf? That in itself should be a red flag. All you people are fucking idiots that fell for it. LOL especially the poster above me.
Hilarious
February 24, 2010 at 12:52 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
HaaHaaaHaaaaaaa!!!!FU, fucking hilarious. PERFECT!
branko
August 10, 2011 at 11:49 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
hi i got the crystal from ebay and igot the trc 207 and i cant find the crystal in the trc 207 wher is the crystal at?
rich
June 30, 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
got me good lol flowed the video and was like “wtf no crystal!”I’m not electronics savvy so i bought into the whole thing.
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