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I am trying to recreate the demo in this video, titled “How to create your own aurora.”

To summarize the video, a radio is used to light a fluorescent light bulb. The narrator describes the walkie talkie as representing the solar wind and the fluorescent light bulb as representing the Earth’s atmosphere. The bulb is not connected to electricity. When she brings the bulb close to the walkie talkie, it begins to glow white. She then demonstrates this phenomenon again with a smaller fluorescent bulb that glows green instead of white.

I understand the science of how this works, but when trying to replicate this experiment with a fluorescent light bulb and the radio I have (a Motorola CP185 radio), the light bulb does not glow. My question is, what type of radio should I use instead? Also, the fluorescent lightbulb I have glows white when screwed into a lamp, so what kind of fluorescent light bulb is needed to create the green glow?

I am aware that a version of this experiment can be done with a tesla coil or even a plasma ball instead of a radio, but I am specifically interested in using a radio, as I need this demo to be as portable as possible.

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    $\begingroup$ Your Motorola is 4 or 5 Watts of output power. Any idea of the radio in the video? I'm not going to watch it just to find out... $\endgroup$
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:13
  • $\begingroup$ I can’t tell from the video what kind of radio it is. If it helps, you can go to time mark 1:13 to see the radio in the video. It looks larger than my Motorola and has a longer antenna. $\endgroup$
    – Moth
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:16
  • $\begingroup$ It looks like an Alan radio (UK company). For various reasons I think it is a CB radio, not UHV/VHF, so transmitting on 11m (around 27MHz). Your radio is higher frequency (VHF above 136MHz, UHF even higher, roughly the 2M and 70cm ham bands). $\endgroup$
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:33
  • $\begingroup$ Okay, I can locate a CB radio to try. Another question - does the wattage of the light bulb matter in comparison to the watts of power from the radio? A CB radio is also about 4 Watts of output power. $\endgroup$
    – Moth
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 19:57
  • $\begingroup$ If you do recreate the demo you could talk about the differences as well. Aurora are the result of solar-wind electrons hitting nitrogen and oxygen, and the colors are characteristic of the spectrum of those atoms. The electrons get a boost from the Earth's magnetic field, which is why they are seen predominantly at the magnetic poles. Fluorescent lights work on the basis of a phosphor coating on the inside surface of the bulb which is ordinarily excited by UV produced in the bulb. $\endgroup$
    – Boba Fit
    Commented Feb 14, 2023 at 20:08

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You need an older fluorescent light bulb that has high mercury. Many new bulbs have low mercury.

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