3.6KHz peeping in my garden...any idea ?

[spasm_dtc]

Hello All,

I post this here because this might be the section where some people have had this experience and know the cause of the trouble that i run into these days:

For a few days now, there's a very distinguishable beep continuously polluting the exterior of my house - i've recorded it quickly yesterday and isolated it - it's a continuous 3.6KHz tone, that stops me from opening the studio windows or even just sit outside.

Does anyone in here have a clue what kind of device could produce this very tiring tone? Yu never know, that might help me narrow down the possibilities as far as my neighbours are concerned.

thanks

[MichaelPatrick]

Tones in that range should be fairly easy to locate unless they somehow radiate broadly through an air cavity or a solid medium like a wall.

I'm just curious why you don't know what it is after isolating it.

[j-uk]

Originally Posted by spasm_dtc

Hello All,

I post this here because this might be the section where some people have had this experience and know the cause of the trouble that i run into these days:

For a few days now, there's a very distinguishable beep continuously polluting the exterior of my house - i've recorded it quickly yesterday and isolated it - it's a continuous 3.6KHz tone, that stops me from opening the studio windows or even just sit outside.

Does anyone in here have a clue what kind of device could produce this very tiring tone? Yu never know, that might help me narrow down the possibilities as far as my neighbours are concerned.

thanks

Smoke or gas alarm running out of battery.

[Jay Lee]

Aliens.

[spasm_dtc]

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

Tones in that range should be fairly easy to locate unless they somehow radiate broadly through an air cavity or a solid medium like a wall.

Indeed, sadly the location allows a lot of reflection, making it very difficult to spot even with a directional mic and a dish...

Originally Posted by MichaelPatrick

I'm just curious why you don't know what it is after isolating it.

As i said, all i can spot on the spectrograph is a huge, constant peak at 3.6 Khz and there's not much more i can do with that - there are no variations r detail that could point me to one or the other device specifically.

Originally Posted by j-uk

Smoke or gas alarm running out of battery.

That's something i already thought about - very likely also after searching the net for 3.6KHz: in the first hundred google results i've found a gazillion types of piezo buzzers designed for that frequency and 90db SPL...(which given the maximum possible distance to the source seems to be just an on-the-spot result from google, for once )

Anyway, i've been hearing it all night and i'm getting coucou right now, next step is a police complaint - and i've never been fond of the police.

Originally Posted by Jay Lee

Aliens.

If only :D

[Audiop]

Could it be a fan or circulation-pump of some sort?


/Peter

[t_chance]

A buddy of mine got a call from his wife when she heard a similar tone. She basically freaked out because a couple houses had been blown up in the last few weeks from gas leaks. He rushed home and they searched for more than an hour before they found out it was the exercise machine battery going low.

Try using a piece of cardboard tube or PVC pipe as a directional megaphone up against your ear.

[PlugHead]

Is it a continuous tone, or does it come and go intermittently?

If it's intermittent, it sounds similar to what I've heard in our neighbourhood - I've always assumed it was something stemming from the service poles (transformers/etc.) - I can't positively verify, but can't figure it being anything else.

Luckily, I'm in the basement, and can't hear it when the windows are closed.

Good luck,

[roonsbane]

I am afraid one of your neighbors has purposely brought this into your neighborhood. It is likely an annoying box that you plug into the wall that purposely produces this sound. I have seen these purchased to both chase away deer and chase away mosquitoes. Neither of which likely works. For eight years I rented this place right on the Atlantic ocean with very relaxing front porch over looking the water. At night we used to hang out and watch 6-9 planes line up to land at Logan airport, oh and drink. It was great until my neighbor purchased one of those things to chase away the bugs. Most people don't even hear it, but it will drive any musician or recording engineer or young person insane! I actually had to walk to the neighbors house and ask them to turn the stupid thing off or I would have to never go outside or open the windows.

Then my 68 year old aunt purchased one to chase away the deer at their vacation home on Lake George. This friend and I drive in the long dirt road late at night ready to spend the week. We are 50 yards up from the cottage and we get out of the car ready with flashlights to journey down through the woods. Immediately the sound is like a laser in our ear canals. We walk down to the house and have to unplug that stupid box before our heads explode. The next morning I tell my aunt we had to unplug the thing before our heads exploded. She says' "isn't that interesting I can't even hear it" She is a pianist but with 68 year old hearing it's tough for most people to hear.
I say find it and kill it!
Cameron

[Thomas W. Bethe]

My thoughts would be the following.

Garden pond pump starting to go bad.

Some neighbor has something that is driven by a belt ( pool pump etc) and the belt is glazed.

Mosquito repeller of the propane gas variety.

Bug Light.

Filament singing from an outside bulb.

Pole mounted transformer lamination singing.

Tinnitus (But you said you could measure it.)

The new ballast for fluorescent lights are electronic and can give off a noise.

Switching type power supply in the house or garage.

Wind driven or solar powered wind turbine for the attic.

Exhaust fan.

My neighbor has the kind of furnace that runs 24/7 with an outside air intake and exhaust and it makes a noise at a given frequency that is not as high as 3600 Hz but close.

Best of luck!

[roonsbane]

Ok 3600 Hz that is is too low to be the deer chaser. That would drive everyone crazy. I didn't really absorb that detail. Thomas has some better ideas. I am out. I hope you find it before it drives you bonkers.

Cameron

[shaddai]

Aliens.

Hmm.... I think it's the Feds.

[MichaelPatrick]

Originally Posted by shaddai

Hmm.... I think it's the Feds.

Predator drone?

[spasm_dtc]

To all of those who said exhaust fan: BRAVO!

Originally Posted by shaddai

Hmm.... I think it's the Feds.

AND WE HAVE ANOTHER WINNER !!!!(almost)

I ended up going to the police, where i was told that they had had other reports from the same neighbourhood, but they couldn't do anything unless someone could propperly identify the source location....

To add to the disagreement, a police helicopter seemed to be eager to cruise over our neighbouhood on friday and made countless passes over our house.

And on saturday morning at 6, we got woken by a huge noise in our street:

The police was raiding a house about 100m away from mine and TADAAAAAH:
...They raided a huge weed plantation. Nothing unusual here in the netherlands, and since then the noise is gone.

It seems the guys had capped the electricity lines under the street, digging a tunnel from their house, in order not to show up on the radar (the police and the energy companies work hand in hand on this matter here).
The installation was reportedly highly dangerous because pumping way too much current and was poorly installed and maintained. The beep was emanating from a faulty exhaust fan, blowing the air off in the back of their garden so the smell wouldn't reach the street (the pipes were also installed in a tunnel under the basement...). The faulty fan was the one on the garden side...

And guess what, the huge plop's that were shooting through my monitors from time to time despite having installed AC filters are gone as well...

I don't have anything against weed or weed growers, but it's the second time they raid a growhouse very close to my home and everytime it means less problems with strange noises in my recordings and less electricity problems as well... for once in my life, i actually like the cops