What IS that noise?

lilbangladesh · September 2007

There's this intermittent high-pitched noise (5 sec. noise, 1 sec. silence. It will stop for a few minutes before starting up again) that's been going on since last night. It seems to be coming from behind my building on St. John's Place somewhere near Kingston Ave. It's driving me bats.

homeowner · September 2007

See this thread

http://brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38030

Its happening all over the neighborhood.

lilbangladesh · September 2007

Wow. And no one has ANY idea?

At first, I thought I might be the only one to hear it since I can hear at higher pitches and softer volumes than most people.

jeffrey · September 2007

Lots of sneaky teens in the neighborhood?

Oh darn. No more YouTube embeds.

Le-sigh....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNAypdzZiEk

http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/

lilbangladesh · September 2007

No, I don't think so. The tone isn't that high in pitch (thank God!) and it's considerably louder.

I can just barely hear 15.8 khz, but the 14.9 khz hurt my ears. Youch!

When I was a kid, I used to be able to hear dog whistles and the pain was about the same. Thankfully, I've lost a significant amount of hearing from years playing in symphony orchestras (sitting right in front of the brass section would do it), but last time I was tested a few years ago, my hearing was still 10 to 20% above normal in all frequencies. The hearing I've lost I don't miss.

The tones have stopped for the time being, but if you look at the PH forum, people have been bothered by it for at least through the summer. So this seems to be a real problem in Brooklyn. So what is it? A mind control experiment? What?

We are Brooklyn. You WILL be assimilated. All resistance is futile.

lilbangladesh · September 2007

Dammit, spoke too soon. Damn noise has started up again. So much for being able to sleep.

lilbangladesh · October 2007

Arggh!!! It started up AGAIN at about 3 AM and it's still going on. Except now there is sometimes a second, higher tone so you get a minor second. Youch!

What the heck is it? It can't be any sort of signal communication because it's too regular. When I was a kid, I visited someone who lived near a military installation and it nearly drove me out of my mind because I could hear the signals from the radio tower. But those signals were chaotic, not steady.

jeffrey · October 2007

lilbangladesh wrote: Arggh!!! It started up AGAIN at about 3 AM and it's still going on. Except now there is sometimes a second, higher tone so you get a minor second. Youch!

Any mysterious abductions or levitation beams reported lately?

lilbangladesh · October 2007

I dunno. Let me check the PH board where people have been complaining about the same exact thing.

armchair_warrior · October 2007

maybe its a artist and their noise making machines :O.

hehe copy and paste stolen from gothamist.

http://gothamist.com/2007/10/09/concrete_cricke.php

Concrete Crickets Are Amongst Us

Michael Dory is expanding the definition of graffiti, with his non-visual sonic street art (presented last month at Conflux). His inconspicuous concrete crickets (pictured) recently got some NPR and Boing Boing love, and his own site explains:

Graffiti is one of the most powerful and most personal displays in the urban experience, and can be used to make statements, tag territory, spread messages — urban markup language in practice. However, the output is nearly always visual in nature, making this experience one-dimensional. Furthermore, rarely does the work have a brain of its own, and is usually incapable of reacting to anybody observing it.

Concrete Crickets was created to address this deficit, creating small devices that will be aware of passers-by as well as other units of their kind. Each unit consists of a sound generator, amp, speaker and sensory system, and is housed in camouflage appropriate to the streets of the city — soda cans, cigarette packs, and the like.

So there you have it...batteries, hacked mp3 players, wires, speakers and garbage create a little bit of magic on the streets (and almost reminds us of a less-intelligent Number 5). There are more photos of the crickets around the city here, we wonder how many of these will be reported as "suspicious" to the NYPD.

Check out a video here...have you heard anything chirping lately? This has us thinking that maybe the maple syrup smell was just olfactory graffiti!

lilbangladesh · October 2007

I doubt this is it. It doesn't sound like crickets. It's a high-pitched, clearly mechanical, thoroughly annoying noise that can continue for 24 to 36 hours at a time and probably much louder than these installations.

I think that if these things were chirping at such decibels at 3 AM, they'd quickly be destroyed by angry neighbors.

Plus, I haven't noticed any cool art about the neighborhood that'd chirp at me.

wirenut · October 2007

The sound lilbangledesh describes sounds like a typical TROUBLE signal on many commercial burglar/fire alarm systems. Some of these systems have a steady tone in lieu of the 5sec/1sec you described, but many are the 5/1 type. They are piercing and annoying - they are designed to get attention.

The signal can be silenced (until repaired) usually by pressing a button, but if the problem goes away and comes back (fanthom TROUBLE), the sound starts up again.

Are there any buildings near you that would have a commercial fire/burglar system?

lilbangladesh · October 2007

Well my apartment faces a storage facility. And there's RiteAid down the block.

What IS that noise?

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