Has a frozen pea in a whistle ever actually happened to you in real life? This is a concern to me because I spend a lot of time in snow country.

On the Internet, people often talk about the danger of a pea freezing in a whistle, but I could not find anybody who described this phenomenon actually happening to them. I blindly accepted this assertion anyway because it seemed to make sense. Then, I got a bit irritated because one of my favorite whistles has a pea, the venerable Storm Whistle http://www.stormwhistles.com/ (no affiliation). Some people erroneously describe this whistle as not having a pea, but it definitely does.

Anyway, I conducted an experiment with several whistles. I turned the temperature down on the freezer to as cold as it would go. I don't know what temp that would be, but let's just say the ice in the freezer was already rock hard before I turned the temperature down more. Then, I took the following five whistles and dunked them in a bucket of icy water:

1. Storm Whistle (synthetic pea)
2. Fox 40 Sonik Blast (pea-less)
3. Fox 40 Sharx (pea-less)
4. No-name metal whistle (synthetic pea)
5. No-name plastic whistle (synthetic pea)

I took those whistles, still filled with water, and placed the whistles in my freezer. You may ask why I didn't freeze the whistles in a bowl of water. Well, I'm less interested in that experiment because I don't think that simulates real life conditions for me. Also, I'll assume NO whistle works while it's inside a solid ice block.

Next, I allowed the freezer to freeze the whistles. Then, I stuck my head in the freezer to blow each whistle. (Yeah, I can think of about 10 jokes too.) Each whistle was caked with frozen water at this point.

Here's the result:

NONE of the whistles froze up. They all worked as if I had not even frozen them. This result makes me feel more comfortable with carrying my Storm Whistle in the freezing cold.

My educated guess is that a pea freezing is a concern for peas that hold moisture, for example, cork peas. This urban legend turned into people making general statements about all peas. By the way, who in the heck deliberately carries a whistle having a cork pea? I don't even own a whistle with a cork pea.

The less moving parts you have,the less likely you'll have a failure,& since Pea whistles are dependent upon the Pea to function as a whistle(did you try it without the pea?)Pealess whistles Eliminate that worry,Alltogether!

Yes, that's true in theory, but I think it's such an unlikely concern that it's not worth bypassing some outstanding whistles that have a pea. For comparison, I view fire starting gear (including tinder) to be about 100 times more delicate than a pea whistle.

I'm interested in people describing how a pea whistle actually malfunctioned on them, what brand it was, the conditions, etc. As far as trying a pea whistle WITHOUT the pea, all my pea whistles must be destroyed in order to remove the pea. So, no, I did not try this!

wrt destruction being the only way to remove a pea from a whistle, I'm not sure that's true, although my evidence is ~40 years old. As a child I had a whistle that lost its pea. I don't remember how, but having 5 brothers probably had something to do with it (the superior force of nature that is 5 brothers can often overcome any design or engineered strength of structure). Without its pea, it was no whistle no more. I remember getting particularly steamed at brother Dan about this, and he hit me on the elbow with his metal kazoo, causing much bleeding and my second biggest scar at the time. Which endeared me to my 8 year old neighbor Molly (not her real name), who thought I was the bravest 8 year old ever, for about a week.

Why am I thinking this post is less about whistle testing than personal remembrances of a cute girl named molly?

But in any case - why an experiment about the function of frozen pea whistle when pea-less whistles are just as functional? I like the experiments that show the decibels generated don't actually carry very far in forested environments - that made me re-think what to tell my kids about blowing whistles until help came.

I took a pea out of a pea whistle,the pea was solid plastic,kinda' like from a soft air gun type BB,I had to tweak the metal a bit,but I bent it back in shape,& without the pea it didn't strike a note,I even tried bending the metal in various way's to get some tunes out of it,but no go,I placed the pea back in & closed it,It worked again!It was a $3.50 whistle from Sports Chalet,the brand is Champion,I still have it,though it's not a user,for myself! I have No affiliation with the above named store!

...because I really like the Storm Whistle.

I was a traffic cop for three years back in the '70's. I worked outside directing traffic and drove a Harley Davidson police motorcycle in all four seasons in Minnesota. I used either a nickle-plated brass whistle with a rubber mouth guard or a standard black plastic whistle. If I recall correctly, all of my whistles had cork balls. The whistles were on a lanyard and hung on the outside of my coat. I blew them frequently except when traveling on my open three-wheel motorcycle.

I did almost have several body parts freeze up, but never the pea in my whistle.

Thanks for relating your experience. One less thing to worry about. Even if a pea did freeze up, I would think it would e very easy to unfreeze. Simply put it next to your body for a minute or so...

Great experiment, appreciate the comments.

Let's face it ... even IF the pea froze up ... how's that going to affect you?

Option 1: put inside shirt for a few minutes. Hopefully you'd notice and start doing this PRIOR to the SAR team walking past you.
Option 2: if it's that cold, you'll probably be trying to get a fire going. Said fire would conveniently warm body AND whistle.
Option 3: Whistle. You know, pucker up. Better than nothing. Though I assume you'd be pretty nippy at that point too and probably sound like a broken kazoo.

Seems the risks of a frozen pea are pretty far down on the 'what if' scale, with relatively easy fixes.

Ditto!

Interesting test and I appreciate the effort. I guess the frozen pea was a myth used as a marketing ploy for pealess whistles.

I am surprised that you didn't have a whistle stick to your lips, like Christmas Story and the flagpole/tongue triple dog dare.

Kudos for taking on this experiment.

That said, I've been in places where it was too cold for any whistle to function properly, pea or no pea. Once it gets into the sub-zero temps (say, -15F/-26C) all bets are off.

For me, it was the thought of cold metal sticking to exposed lips that made me switch to a plastic Fox 40 -- not the possibility of an immobile pea.

From an article entitled, "5 Worst Weather Super Bowls":

...Referee Norm Schachter had a metal whistle freeze to his lips. When he tried to rip it free, it took the skin off his lip, leaving a frozen, bloody lip! Referees then had to simply yell out commands instead of blowing the whistle to end plays.

1967 NFL Championship "The Ice Bowl"
Dec. 31, 1967 (Green Bay, WI)

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-n...12-02-02?page=6

Neat! Thanks for going through the effort and posting your results.

With all respect:

I have several Storm whistles, including a couple of different models. They are bloody excellent. I have given several more as gifts. They are part of my front-line kits.

But I find no evidence of a pea. Rattle one around: hear a pea? I don't.

That said, I have had many pea-equipped whistles. I have never had one freeze in cold weather. And if it did freeze, the solution would be to hold it in your glove (or shove it into your shorts) for a minute, alongside your Bic, shake it around, and it would work like it should.

So, respectfully, I don't see what the fuss is about.

Really? I hear a pea. More importantly, the manufacturer of the Storm Whistle says there's a pea in there. See the diagram on this page:

http://www.stormwhistles.com/quickfacts.html

Maybe you're talking about a different whistle?

The sound is probably masked by the metal split ring rattling.

Great experiment, thank you!

My Storm Whistle has a revolving multi-arm paddle, like a steamboat paddle, but no pea. Granted, mine was manufactured about 15 years ago, so the design may have changed. The website shows a drawing of the Windstorm with a pea, not a drawing of the Storm with a pea.

Whistles with peas were abandoned by hockey leagues years ago (especially unheated or outdoor facilities). That is one sport where they DID freeze up. It is not a myth. The amount of times they blow the whistle or even hold the whistle up to blow leads to a lot of spittle in the whistle which can freeze and block the operation or at the very least atune the frequency so that it becomes a garble instead of a tweeeet.

Good work ireckon.

I must admit, I have had my pee freeze in a whistle, but don't ask how it got there...

You're absolutely right. I spoke too soon.

Actually this not quite true. During the last NHL All Star week, there was a very brief discussion on a sports show about the old whistles as compared to the new whistles. The reason both high level minor and pro hockey migrated to pea-less whistles is due to the fact that most modern arenas are much larger and seat more people which means more crowd noise. The old pea whistles that refs once used were not loud enough to hear above the crowd noise whereas the newer whistles are designed to be louder and and with a different pitch that helps overcome (mostly) the crowd noise and the bad acoustics of the bigger arenas. It also bears mentioning that the Fox brand is the official (sponsored) ref whistle of the NHL so it is no surprise that refs use them..

Around here, a few old school beer league refs still use the old pea whistles, but the most common I see are the Fox brand of whistles also.

As for the cold freezing the pea in the old whistles, we discussed this here awhile. When I was growing up and playing outdoor hockey for hours at time, we never had problems with the pea whistles in temps well below zero.

Option 4: Carry TWO whistles...?

An excellent test. Thankyou.

I am another one who has lost the pea out of a whistle, many years ago. I'll admit that I don't know the brand and I'm sure it was a fairly cheap one.

I can see some general wisdom in the sentiment against pea whistles: if you lined up a random bunch of scouts, or even hikers, how many would have a cheap pea whistle like mine ?

I suspect there is nothing "wrong" with any quality whistle, but any "cheap" whistle may not perform when its needed most !

PS - I'm not sure about the wisdom some folk have put forward "...just warm it up ". Yes you can do that, but if you are in a "situation", that may not be possible, or not quick enough to be useful, so although you can do it, its not ideal

I am wondering though - you blow into the whistle with several quarts of air heated to something like 98.6 degrees F. Wouldn't that dislodge the pea from any tiny bit of ice that may have stuck it to the chamber of the whistle?

I never had a pea whistle malfuntion. I did take the cork pea out of a couple of cheepies just to see what would happed. They lost their characteristic trill and sounded like a medium pitched bosun's whistle, but still worked. I suppose if the resonance chamber or labium (air splitter) gets ice built up, it would alter the airflow enough to prevent getting any good volume.

Also, the current crop of Storm whistles do have a pea. It's not the split ring that you're hearing rattling.