I'm looking for flat whistles for an urban travel kit. They should be shrill enough to be heard over background noises, reconizable as a whistle, and do not require a lot of lung power. The hard flat surfaces and high background noise of the city requires a difference whistle then wilderness. I already have a Storm dedicated to off pavement duty.

My choices are
Acme 636 slimline tornado
ACR WW-3
Fox40 mini with vanes shaved off

Thoughts?

Check out the Nitecore whistles. They are so small that I have one on my keychain.

Nitecore and 4Sevens make really nice ones, both single and double chamber. I have a tube shaped Ti one from CountyComm.com. Less expensive with very little volume and weight. It hangs on my key ring. I suspect it is the Vargo, but I am not sure. Loud but very high pitch - if you work with old shooters it might not work as well. (-: The Fox 40 Micro that comes in the Ritter PSK is great and much less expensive if you can stand the storage volume, they are much larger.

Respectfully,

Jerry

Here is one:

Attwood Flat Safety Whistle

Which is a VERY SLIGHTLY arguer version of the TOPS Knives whistle:

TOPS Knives Survival Whistle

Both seem to be equally loud with minimal effort.

The others that people have mentioned are good, though I like the very flat form factor of the ACR and the TOPS Knives whistles.

I have the CountyComm Ti Whistle -- 0.1 oz, 2.2" long & .3" diameter -- wear it.

No affiliation other than as a customer.

I have Fox 40 Micros on my keychains. They seem to be largely indestructible and I don't baby them at all.

[img]http://www.fox40shop.com/core/media/media.nl?id=8304&c=611610&h=bf12578bb828e6526390[/img]

http://www.fox40shop.com/s.nl/sc.7/category.18058/.f

EDIT: Can't seem to get the image to display, sorry 'bout that.

I carried one of the faux Bison design cylinder whistles on a keychain for a while. It now belongs to DW after a bought of laryngitis.

Can the single, steady tone be recognized over the background noise? The lack or a chord or trill was the one thing that kept me away the the single tube whistles.

dayhiking, i have the acr ww3 hanging on my neck chain with my dogtag. so light and flat - don't even know it's there.

double post

I went with the ACME 636. IMHO, the trill is just easier to pick up over busy background noise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0_nnmeFohE

I gave some EDC items this year for Christmas, and in a non scientific test (with old ears) of which whistle to purchase, the Acme 636 sounded better (frequency and amplitude) than the Fox or TOPS... the best deal I found was from the Lifeguard Store

I found a series of blog posts for a couple dozen emergency whistles.
bigpigblog.com/2014/05/05/whistlemania-i/
bigpigblog.com/2014/05/15/whistlemania-ii-the-iceman-cometh/
bigpigblog.com/2014/05/28/whistlemania-iii-slippery-when-wet/
bigpigblog.com/2014/06/13/whistlemania-iv-sound-off/
bigpigblog.com/2014/07/09/whistlemania-v-come-sail-away/

The top performers for the mini whistles (decibel loss with child vs adult blowing, detectable range over water with adult blowing, and distinctiveness of tone) were the ACME 660, the ACR, the Hammerhead, and the Fox40 mini. The ACME 636 had a big 10 dB drop when blown by a child instead of an adult, and the Fox40 micro/SOL rescue howler came in dead last with an 11 dB drop and a 1/2 mile range while most of the rest could reach out to 3/4 miles.

Because of this, I ordered the ACR to compare with the 636, and did an impromptu test using a smoke alarm as a reference. It was daylight savings time, so I was changing the smoke and CO alarm batteries anyway. I was wearing high fidelity ear plugs (Hearos) to protect my ears as is my habit when working with the alarms.
The 636 was slightly (objectively speaking) louder than the smoke alarm, and had its distinctive trill.
The ACR tone sounded almost exactly like a smoke alarm, but much louder.
The smoke alarm (Kiddie i9060) was rated at 85 dB at 10 ft, so 95-96 dB at 3 ft. I believe the rating to be accurate.

The ACR, because of its lower air requirements, and smoke alarm tone, has replaced 636 in my urban travel kit. The 636 went into my small gear drawer (whistles, knives, lights, pouches, and specialty batteries) for carry as the situation requires.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Fox 40 Sharx Whistle. The Sharx isn't flat but it is loud.

Interesting to hear about the Acme whistles. I need to find one of those and try it out for "keychain" duty.

I have a couple of the Fox 40 Sharx whistles. They are VERY loud and effective (the original Fox 40s are nowhere near as loud) but too big for my keychain. The Storm whistle is a bit louder still, and the sound is more directed forward (thus easier on the ears of the user). But a Sharx, tethered to a pocket compass, is standard pocket carry for me when I'm anywhere off pavement.

ACME tends to perform better then most pea whistle. The 660 is their smallest pea whistle. Their biggest whistle (558) usually ranks just behind the storm whistles in audible range over land.

FWIW, you can listen to several different Acme whistles on this site: http://acmewhistles.ca/products/tornado-pealess-whistles/ .

If you're looking for a flat whistle, then I recommend Acme 636. The Acme 636 is not only a great small whistle, it's also my favorite pea-less whistle. I also own Storm, Fox Sharx, Fox Sonik Blast, TOPS, and others. I do not own the ACR whistle. Regarding the Fox Sharx, it is about three times larger than the Acme 636.

The whistle I carry 24/7 is the Acme 660. It is my favorite pea whistle and favorite overall. For size comparison, the Acme 660 is substantially smaller than the Fox Sharx. The Acme 660 is also way easier to blow than any of the whistles I mentioned above. For reference, my daughter was able to make an extremely loud sound with the Acme 660 when she was two years old. She could not do so with any of the other whistles I mentioned.

http://bigpigblog.com/2014/05/15/whistlemania-ii-the-iceman-cometh/

He said the pea froze on the Acme 660 and the Storm. Sorry, I don't believe it. I have run numerous freeze/abuse tests on the Acme 660 and the Storm. I could not get the pea to freeze on either whistle.

Further, he summarily claims all of his pea whistles froze up. That's just fishy. Anyway, I can't speak for the others because I don't own them, but I'm highly skeptical he got the peas to freeze in the Acme 660 and the Storm.

http://bigpigblog.com/2014/07/09/whistlemania-v-come-sail-away/

He talks about the pea in the Storm getting stuck from over-blowing. Sorry, I don't believe that either. This guy has a bias against pea whistles and has decided to perpetuate the myths.

What kind of test did you run?


Doesn't seem fishy to me, seems like predictable outcome whistles were shaken not blown. The pea whistles have a pea, and are deep with small openings ... shaking won't get all the water out, once in the box gravity makes the water and the pea settle on the bottom, and they freeze


I don't see the bias or the myth

I don't have that acme whistle but I've gotten a pea stuck more than one pea whistle ... that is stuck temporarily for about one breath and one touch .. in over 10 years it happened maybe about 10 times over 10000 tries (0.1%)

so yes, the peas could get stuck temporarily, its not just theoretical. Its also plausible the peas could freeze temporarily ...

hmmm... so worst case scenario, your whistle is frozen like an ice cube, how long does it take to melt an ice cube with your hands? with your body? while floating next to some ice in an immersion suit?

peas, don't worry about it, thank you

For every plea whistle, the blog says, "Pea froze, but whistle still worked." I don't know what that means because "frozen pea" implies the whistle is not making a sound. As far as I am concerned, a whistle that works does not have a frozen pea.

For my Acme 660 and Storm, I froze the whistles in a freezer after dunking them in frigid water (like the test he ran). I also took the whistles with me snowboarding on Colorado summits, and I buried the whistles in the snow for awhile. I repeated those tests several times. The peas never froze. In the end, I trust my experiments the most.



A whistle frozen in an ice cube would be a problem for any whistle, pea or pea-less. However, I'm guessing a smaller whistle (like the Acme 660) will thaw faster than a larger whistle (like the Fox Sharx).

A conventional pea whistle is, acoustically speaking, a vessel flute. The same as an ocarina, and obeys the same equations as an vessel flute. Even with the pea jammed in place, or removed altogether, it will generate a steady tone. I had a couple of de-pea'd (neutered?)whistles, and aside from having a lowered pitch, work as well as the unaltered models.

Just a though, but if any of the manufacturer's are listening, an open ended whistle, instead of the conventional close ended whistle, would make debris a lot less of a problem. Getting pocket lint out of the bottom of a small whistle is a pain in the rear. Blowing it out the end of a open ended tube, not so much.

A good description of whistle "physics" is at wiki Police whistle.
I linked to the section on police whistles but the physics and math discussions above it I suppose would be interesting if I could stay awake. I suspect that when you add a pea what you are doing is adding an object that moves around and disrupts the flow which causes a warble rather than allowing a steady tone. Remove the pea and you get a steady tone. Freeze the pea and you have a partial obstruction in the chamber which the air flows around -- it's a different tone, but it's still a whistle. in my totally physics challenged opinion

That's good info, thanks.

Speaking of physics, I had taken a series of oscilloscope FFT readings of various whistles a while back. Assuming they post in the same order as I'm uploading them..
1) Closed end cylinder whistle, approx 1 inch effective length.
2) Two tone marine flat whistle. AKA "lifejacket" whistle.
3) Harmonica with the cover removed. Note the large number of harmonics produced by a free reed vs a fipple.
4) Storm Whistle with a light blow. Not enough to get the pea moving. The fundamental I'd a close match to the advertised 3150 hz frequency.
5) Storm Whistle note the drop in frequency once the pea gets moving. My WAG is the air being dragged around by the pea is damping the oscillations.

Your suspicious attitude is unwarranted. I know the author of that blog personally and have trained in field survival skills with him. BigPig is a veteran of the National Park Service's law enforcement rangers and has very, very extensive field experience.

I think he would be happy to explain his whistle testing in more depth with you if you would simply ask.

I know this is a thread about flat whistles, but I don't want to start a new thread just to talk about the Acme 560:

http://www.acmewhistles.co.uk/xcart/product.php?productid=64

Does anybody have thoughts? I just ordered one. It's only slightly bigger than the Acme 660, and reviews say it's louder with a deeper tone. The Acme 660 is already incredibly loud.

It's just my opinion, and you took my words out of their context.

I emailed him. I use the storm whistles for both my home and my outdoor kits, so hopefully we'll get some clarification on what he means by "jammed".

Big Pig's reply

I don't think you could go wrong with the 560 as a general purpose whistle. From what I've seen it's just a wider variant of the 660.

I think all the controversy over pea type whistles are overblown (no pun intended.) I cannot think of one survival scenario where blowing on the whistle and worrying about the pea freezing is realistic. If someone is all that worried that the weather is extreme cold enough to freeze the pea to the inside of the whistle, simply keep it in your pocket, inside of a coat or cupped in the palm of your hand between uses as it would be very unlikely that you would be blowing on the whistle nonstop.

As for the best or loudest type of whistle? Lab and controlled testing cannot come close to duplicating anywhere near real world field conditions of wilderness survival whistle use. For example, wind strength, wind direction, rain, snow, humidity, tree cover, vegetation, open terrain, mountain, hills, lakes, rivers, canyon walls, persons overall physical and physiological condition and a thousand other variables. All these conditions and variables will all produce different results as conditions can change dramatically by the minute or hour. In an urban environment, there are 1000's of more variables to think about how faraway a whistle will be heard...or not heard at all.

In reality, the best whistle is the whistle you have on your person when needed the most...

I carry Fox 40 whistles and not that I think they are the best. Rather that the Ministry of Forests and Lands here give away these whistles for free by the 1000's each year. Needless to say, I have more then a lifetime supply of the Fox 40 whistles.

You make some excellent points. I wonder what the real world experience with whistles as a signaling device has been? I have carried one for years and never had to use it. Any stories?

The Acme 560 is exactly what I expected. Compared to the Acme 660, the 560 is slightly bigger, slightly louder, slighter lower pitch, and about as easy to blow.

By the way, I can make a moderately loud sound with the following whistles by normally breathing into them:

Acme 660
Acme 560
Victorinox Distress (aka, TOPS)
Jetscream (but sounds like a lot of wasted air exits)

I have to apply a more forceful breath in order to can make a moderately loud sound with the following whistles:

Storm
Acme 60.5
Acme 636
Fox 40 Sharx
Fox 40 Sonik Blast

I've only used them as non-emergency signals. Usually if one of us is recovering from bronchitious or similiar. They're a lot louder then a yell from somebody who's lost their voice or lung capacity.

For comparison, I've only needed a fire extinguisher twice in my life, a smoke alarm once, and called 911 twice (once to report my neighbors playing around with class 1.3 fireworks, and once to report a motorcycle injury accident). I put the whistle in with them in the same I-may-never-need-it,-but-if-I-do,-it-will-be-a-life-and-death-situation catagory.

I've never needed to use my PLB either ... and a whistle is a lot less expensive.

While trolling the Net for flat whistle info, I found a page on getting the weight of the ACR whistle (with lanyard) down from it's already svelte 7 grams down to 3 grams! (and getting the bulk of this already tiny whistle down, too!)

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/...thread_id=33706

The Vargo Titanium Emergency Whistle weighs 3 grams too.

Somehow the weight of my whistle is just not a big issue with me.

Weight isn't a big issue to me either, but they went to so much trouble trimming the size of the ACR down to the weight of one of mine. Seemed to be a waste of time.

BTW, I carry that little Ti whistle because it works.

Now, he has to whistle one-handed because he can't hold the whistle with his teeth. For me, saving a couple grams is not worth losing that feature.

A manufacturer seems to make a survival whistle as small as possible for its features. Side note, the Fox 40 Classic has some useless extra plastic because it's designed to look like a traditional referee whistle.

Actually, the SOL Rescue Howler numbers were quite similar to the ACR. For the SOL Rescue Howler, there was only a 3dB drop when blown by a kid, and the whistle was heard up to 3/4 mile. The only difference between these two whistles seems to be a slight difference in tone.

Note that he labeled the Fox 40 Micro in a confusing manner. That may be why you got the data mixed up.

Here is a combination whistle/buckle - If you are concerned about weight,the unit weighs all of 0.35 oz. i purchased one and put it on my day pack - why not? http://www.rei.com/product/848923/gear-aid-whistle-sternum-strap-buckle-kit-34

Not actually all that loud, but it certainly is handy

I'm not a fan of lightweight at any cost. I like the Ti whistle because even though I "know" I'll never need it, it carries easy so I carry it regardless. That said, the Ti whistle is a back-up. The whistles I keep in my backpacks are Fox 40 Sharx. I like the form and they are plenty loud. At least for me, the Sharx blows much easier than the Fox 40 Micro. I'd like to try a Fox 40 Sonik Blast, but for now, the Sharx is what I have in my kits.

I chuckle when reading some of the postings in lightweight forums with their religious furor in "breaking the SUL barrier" and all that. I have never thought of myself as a "heavyweight" type, but utility and safety have always been concerns, along with weight.

I'm off topic again, but I don't want to start another whistle thread just yet...

I was curious about the deeper tone whistles because they consistently do better on carry distance. I just got an Acme 559. It's noticeably bigger and deeper toned than the Acme 560. However, the tone on the 559 is too deep for my taste. I'm satisfied that the Acme 560 is the sweet spot for pitch for me.

I also ordered the Acme 649 Survival Whistle. It fascinated me that the this whistle was the only whistle heard at 3/4 mile by a guy wearing a hearing aid. It even beat out the Storm for that guy.

http://bigpigblog.com/category/signalling-2/

I just got the ACR WW3 Whistle. I like the sound better than the Acme 636. It's also easier to blow as my 40-pound daughter verified.

The plastic is not quite as good as the Acme 636. I guess that's the reason for its low price.

The low pitched whistles do better for two reasons. First is age induced hearing loss starts with the higher frequencies, so older people will have a lower threshold for detecting low pitched whistles then high pitched whistles.

The second is acoustical absorption is an exponential function. Roughly put, every time the frequency doubles, the absorption into the air increases by a factor of 2.7. So, a 2 KHz marine whistle will have 2.7 times the sound pressure as a 4 KHz referee's whistle at a given distance with all else being equal. Wikipedia has an adequate explanation if you want the math.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_attenuation

booo :thumbs_down:
... what kind of fireman jacket should I buy ... the jacket you have with you when you need it is the best one ... cool, cotton is fireproof

Cotton makes good tinder.

Thanks for posting this. I thought it was just me.

I find that the lower pitch whistles cut through a lot more clutter and carry further. And it's not just my middle-aged ears: my hounds will hear a lower pitched whistle (like a Storm or even a flat 3-tone PFD whistle) in wind conditions or when bounding after a snowshoe hare. The higher pitched whistles like the classic Fox 40, loud though they are, don't carry.

Have you tried the Acme 559 or 558? They have a noticeably deeper tone than the Storm and don't hurt the ears up close at all. I have read they carry far, but I haven't tested them yet.

Let me go completely OFF TOPIC here.

Why exactly do you need a whistle? The chances are, if you have an emergency in an urban area, then you can just call for help. The main reason why you might not want to do that - is because SOME of the people in your area are NOT friendly. In which case, a whistle isn't much help.

A cell phone is a much better signaling device. Because you can get a message directly to people who CAN come and look for you. But the main problem with phones is that signal reception can be poor. THEREFORE, what you really need is a portable antenna for a cell phone that BOOSTS the signal strength.

It seems to me that this choice might be a LOT more useful in an urban situation. I need to do the same thing myself - get some sort of portable antenna for my cell phone.

Pete

How is that portable antenna connected to the phone?

You can buy home and car cell phone boosters/repeaters. There are also printed antennas that are supposed to attach to the back of your phone, but they seem gimmicky.

EDIT: As previously noted, whistles are cheap insurance.

I think of a whistle as something I would use in an outdoor setting, but even so, a whistle requires much less energy to activate, especially compared to shouting. If you are buried in the debris generated by an earthquake or tornado, you will probably appreciate the difference.

Just getboth a whistle and an antenna booster.Both are pretty small.

I try to be at least somewhat equipped to survive without using electronics. A whistle is on the short list for that category of equipment. Anyway, I use a whistle regularly for biking, snowboarding, coaching, and generally getting a person's attention who is far away.

I wouldn't trust the little printed antenna that goes on the back of your cell phone. Get something with a big antenna and an amp requiring a power source.

I have something made by Wilson Electronics. I don't know how good this brand is, but it has made a difference in a communication situation. However, it wasn't as big of a difference as I'd hoped. I was driving on a highway and I needed to make an urgent call. I still had to drive a bit before the signal was strong enough.

Just occurred to me: you can probably find more informed opinions on cell phone forums.

As for whistles, the Nitcore is so tiny -- smaller than a key -- there is really no reason why you shouldn't have one on your keychain, along with a keychain light like Doug Ritter's Photon. Maybe a multitool, too.

YEAH I definitely need to buy a professional cell phone booster. I have had far too many problems with reception dropping out. It's worth having a good booster, because if you walk to the top of a hill, or a parking structure, you should be able to connect.

Pete

A whistle, in an urban setting, is a very effective signaling device. However, it is not specifically for summoning HELP, it is for summoning ATTENTION. This is why traffic cops and crossing guards routinely use them. I have effectively used a whistle in urban emergencies to stop traffic, help control crowds and to alert pedestrians to danger.

It's also good to cause one's free-range recombinant DNA to look around and perhaps be receptive to parental instruction.

Also, carrying both a cell phone and a whistle is not burdensome. However, not trying to brag, I can curl a 3-pound dumbbell for 5 reps easy...so yeah.

Can I use that?

I don't know that I came up with that but to whatever extent I have rights to the phrase, feel free.

I use a combination of ASL and US military combat hand signals to give direction to my progeny. When I've taught them non-ASL signs, I've made sure to explain: "That's not sign language, that's Daddy Sign." Like with ASL, facial expression can have a significant impact on the flavor of Daddy Sign.