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#186140 - 10/22/09 03:27 AM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: CANOEDOGS]
NobodySpecial Offline
Member

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 197
Originally Posted By: CANOEDOGS
the story of the lady trapped next to a river who could hear voices but not get anyone's attention clinched it for me..

Yes, SAR stories are full of people where it took hours to fin somebody once the rescuers were within a few 100m of the victim.

http://www.northshorerescue.com/blog/ (these are the people that did the report)

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#186143 - 10/22/09 03:48 AM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: Russ]
scafool Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 12/18/08
Posts: 1534
Loc: Muskoka
Originally Posted By: Russ
...
One aspect to these tests that is missed is modulation of the whistles/tones. The sound may need to overcome background noises in the same frequency (like my tinnitus) and one way to do that might be to modulate the tones.


That might explain why the pea whistles did so much better than I expected too.
In the same vein, does anybody have an idea if the Fox Pearl is enough different but still close enough on its two frequencies to form a beat frequency between them?
_________________________
May set off to explore without any sense of direction or how to return.

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#186144 - 10/22/09 03:55 AM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: NobodySpecial]
fasteer Offline
Journeyman

Registered: 09/01/09
Posts: 63
Loc: away
Interesting study, thanks for posting it.

I carry a Storm on my off-road m/c kit & will attest that it is loud enough to hurt.
I used it recently to catch the attention of other riders going by. They could hear it 50-m away while wearing helmets & riding motorcycles at 50-kph. Some even heard it through ear-plugs.

The Storm is kind of big & clunky, so most of our other kits (wife, son, car, air-travel, etc) have a mix of Fox40 Pearls & Minis.
My own very unscientific comparison between these Fox40 & the Storm matches the report - the Storm is a lot louder.
There is a huge difference between 90dB & 110dB.

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#186165 - 10/22/09 12:23 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: fasteer]
unimogbert Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 08/10/06
Posts: 882
Loc: Colorado
I've tried using whistles to signal in the woods a time or two. Was shocked at how the sound did NOT carry!

(Still better than trying to shout for hours though)

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#186167 - 10/22/09 12:53 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: unimogbert]
Desperado Offline
Veteran

Registered: 11/01/08
Posts: 1530
Loc: DFW, Texas
Fox40 has some interesting new designs, and a nice selection of marine safety gear.

I especially like seeing Don Cherry, but most where I live wouldn't know who he is.
_________________________
I do the things that I must, and really regret, are unfortunately necessary.

RIP OBG

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#186169 - 10/22/09 01:07 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: Desperado]
scafool Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 12/18/08
Posts: 1534
Loc: Muskoka
I always wondered where Don Cherry got his suits, but what really used to get me was how tall the collars on his shirts were.

We used Fox40 Classics for the riggers swamping the cranes. They were loud enough to be heard over the compressors and motors on site for far enough to alert anybody in range of a lift.

That is why the report rating them as no better than the pea whistles surprised me.
_________________________
May set off to explore without any sense of direction or how to return.

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#186170 - 10/22/09 01:34 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: scafool]
Famdoc Offline
Member

Registered: 04/29/09
Posts: 155
Loc: PA
Hearing loss from use of the whistles, esp. if there is a need to use for some hours, is sometimes avoidable. I keep ear plugs at home and in my car kits for this and other times they are needed. Perhaps a set should go in the BOB, as well. They're certainly cheap enough.

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#186176 - 10/22/09 02:51 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: NightHiker]
comms Offline
Veteran

Registered: 07/23/08
Posts: 1502
Loc: Mesa, AZ
The study certainly proved one thing. Have a whistle.
_________________________
Don't just survive. Thrive.

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#186201 - 10/22/09 06:46 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: Russ]
Basecamp Offline
Member

Registered: 11/08/07
Posts: 107
Loc: PNW
I haven't been able to open the link, so I'll remain skeptical...

Whistles are a categorie of audible signal that I can't remember being useful for any of the searches I've been on, but that is not quite a scientific study. I can remember three times when I located the person by shouting: once on a clear day over a mountainside, once in a snowstorm in a wooded/rocky area at daybreak and once in the middle of the night... yelling every so often..."Jeeeeessssssseeeeeeeeeeeee...Jeeeeessssssseeeeeeeeeeeee"...the teen was sleeping soundly in the heavy bush about 3 feet off the trail and jumped straight up when he heard my yell...scared the crap out of me...

Oh, one more came to mind. Middle of the night in farmland, two youngsters went out to play after school and never returned. Introduced myself over the loudspeaker and assured them they weren't in trouble (youngsters will hide from adults when lost, believing they will catch hell when found). I told them their parents were worried and told them they needed to help us find them by making noise, and instructed them to "make noise...Now!". They started to yell, which sounded a lot like a herd of sheep in the night... the firemen who had been combing the area were now able to find them... the only part visible was their faces... they had tried to cross an "empty" irrigation canal and had sunk in the mud to the point where less than half of their head remained clear... The mud is a tremendous force and it took several adults several minutes, probably close to half an hour, to keep the kids from sinking more and to free them from the muck.
If the parents had waited another hour to call, probably would have never known what had happened to them.


Gunshots (into a safe target) travel very well, but echo so much it creates pin-pointing problems at a distance.

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#186210 - 10/22/09 07:24 PM Re: Whistles in the woods [Re: NobodySpecial]
Andy Offline
Enthusiast

Registered: 09/13/07
Posts: 378
Loc: SE PA
Originally Posted By: NobodySpecial
I was a bit surprised how poorly the Fox40 did.
Especially since the guys that did the report (http://www.northshorerescue.com/) hand them out at all their events.




I spent a couple of days this week giving out the mini Fox-40's to AF guys in the SAR and air crew survial business. I heard from several that the pea-less designs do have the advantage in working in extreme cold environments. Also that the fact that the Fox-40 sound is "ugly" makes it easier to hear above the background noise. One tech sgt. mentioned that she uses one I gave her last year to get everybody's attention in the machine shop in which she works.I also gave them out highlighting their usefulness as a personal protection tool.

Can't comment on the study's methodology but as someone else said having one is better than not having one.

Andy
_________________________
In a crisis one does not rise to one's level of expectations but rather falls to one's level of training.

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