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Low frequency faint noise at night
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Home › Forums › General Forums › General Lightweight Backpacking Discussion › Low frequency faint noise at night
- This topic has 108 replies, 24 voices, and was last updated 7 months, 2 weeks ago by Jerry Adams.
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Aug 22, 2023 at 9:11 pm #3787419
“Sorry I’m re-repeating myself”
Yeah, same here, old age is a bitch
Aug 22, 2023 at 9:55 pm #3787421I’ve not noticed it. But perhaps it is that the silence of the natural world, suddenly makes your mind hear other things. I’ve got old age eye’s and have the “Floaters”. My doctor said eventually, you don’t see them that much. What is actually happening is two fold. Your mind is learning to ignore the floaters. When you are busy, you don’t notice them. When I drive, I see them. At night, very still, dark, and I sometimes blink and suddenly am aware of a “flash”. I just had my yearly eye exam and told all this to the doc. She smiled and said it is very typical what I’m reporting. The mind, when not otherwise occupied, still is learning about the floaters, so wakes up to them. Even the flashes.
I’m wondering if the hum is also similar. In places, it is very low so not heard except on certain nights in certain places. The populated world masks it out.
Maybe like the Texas Marfa lights? Can be seen, never fully explained (Car lights….yeah, except they were reported prior to cars and prior to trains in the area).
Or it’s bigfoot……..
Aug 23, 2023 at 7:26 am #3787426I see floaters. I think more so as I get older.
Occasionally I see “aura” like in a migraine headache but without any of the other migraine headache symptoms. I can still see just fine, maybe looking around the aura. Kind of irregular roundish shapes sort of flashing. It goes away after a couple hours. This has been for decade(s) but I can’t think of a recent occurence.
Aug 25, 2023 at 6:30 pm #3787664In the ONP/Forest, I’ve identified on numerous occasions, always in the same areas, at least 3 simultaneous, slightly varied time signature(d) pulse width modulating frequency ranges, which resonate and sync with/to each other. Creating what appears initially to be one frequency block. Once dissected, I can pick apart the layers/depth of the sound like negative synthesis. It will occur only in certain areas. Repeatedly. Then vanish. It’s cyclic in nature, modulating continuously. Will only happen in the park/forest. Nowhere else I’ve been. Obviously this makes my head want to explode.
My general theory, aside from GOV black/science operations, are the waterways. Rivers, waterfalls, etc. creating low, mid frequency anomalies into the airways. It is very mechanical in nature though. Not organic sounding.
Mass radio(active) frequencies abound us. Daily. Look at your home wiFi location/strength. How many other neighboring wireless frequencies does your computer pick up? I can count at least 30 overlapping me in my area alone. Some are coming from over a mile away. And these are considered low powered radio sources. Can you imagine what a high powered source would generate? And how far/up away. What makes us think we can escape them just because we’re miles from the nearest human or industrialized complex.
Aug 25, 2023 at 7:47 pm #3787670IIRC, a few years ago the Navy requested an aircraft electronics training area in the ONF not far from the Park on the west side. Would be convenient for the fighter pilot school at Whidbey Island. It was to involve high energy transmission both from ground and airborne equipment. I don’t know if it was approved.
Note that the ONP has low level military flight paths through it, and the Olympic Military Operations Area is above it on the west side. The ONP is not a good example to use, if looking for the usual source of The Hum or something like it.
Aug 25, 2023 at 8:27 pm #3787671Interesting, I’ll dig into that.
The ONP is not a good example to use, if looking for the usual source of The Hum or something like it.
How so?
Also, I wouldn’t really call it a hum what I’m encountering. More of several rhythmic pulses or waves.
Aug 25, 2023 at 9:50 pm #3787674One of these aluminum caps will keep out all frequencies plus keep your head warm.
Aug 25, 2023 at 9:56 pm #3787676I believe this articles Q & A from the US Navy references what you described. [https://cnrnw.cnic.navy.mil]
Note the 3 mobile and 1 fixed transmitters being used for communications in the Electronic Warfare training Range.
Aug 26, 2023 at 8:48 am #3787693Aug 26, 2023 at 8:53 am #3787694For people reading along and have not had “Flashes” appearing in their vision, don’t ignore those. That COULD be the start of a detaching retina, very serious but treatable when caught quickly.
My “Flashes” and then the following racing black dot and “Floaters” in my vision, is due to an age related event. Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVT). A common age related event. Which MIMICS a detaching retina. You eye doctor/ optometrist can assess it and tell you what is going on.
https://www.asrs.org/patients/retinal-diseases/9/posterior-vitreous-detachment
Aug 26, 2023 at 9:16 am #3787695Lots of water coming off cliffs, streams, creeks etc. do create a low background ‘roar’, that’s really just a kind of constant ‘hum’ perhaps. But Jerry doubtless knows this muffled roar sound well, so that’s probably not it.
Aug 26, 2023 at 4:47 pm #3787727Hah! The MIT article reminded me of the Onion News. Everybody knows the 2 layer method is so yesterday. Anybody ever taken tin foil to enhance the signal reception of their rabbit ears TV antenna? All millennials can keep moving, this happened in the 80’s. I have. : )
Aug 27, 2023 at 10:50 am #3787777Aug 27, 2023 at 12:30 pm #3787782I’ve become fascinated with this 1950s video of a housewife taking lsd as an experiment.
p.s. Terran terran, what a photo! What’s the point of wearing a mosquito headnet when the rest of you is naked? I can’t help but think the model was really annoyed at this shoot. Look how much make up she’s wearing…
Aug 27, 2023 at 3:43 pm #3787821It’s not a mosquito net, though that could be a second use.
From the website…
”Shielding your head just got easier. Slip this sheer and roomy headnet over a wide brimmed hat (to keep it off your face) and it will provide 50 dB or more from 10 kHz to 8 GHz, and 30 dB from 8 GHz to 40 GHz! Draw string at neck allows for comfortable closure. Quick to put on, easy to take off. One size fits all. (Hat not included, shown for illustrative purposes only) The highest shielding headnet on the market!
Hand wash (104°F) with TexCare in distilled or RO water, do not use bleach or chemical detergents. Do not wring. Hang dry only. Do not iron.“
Aug 28, 2023 at 9:03 am #3787846Ok back to the original question:
As others have said above, it sounds like tinnitus. I get it when I take NSAIDS (non steriod anti inflammatory drugs).
Sep 6, 2023 at 10:33 am #3788494I was on another trip
I noticed that the hum comes from a particular direction. It stays in that direction (the direction of the closest big city) even if I rotate my head. That would tend to support the theory this is from industrial noises, not my head.
If it’s quiet during the day I noticed the hum a few times, but just barely. One interference is insect buzzing which happens during the day.
I tried to record it and look at with frequency analyzer but saw nothing. I noticed that when I use the frequency generator, I can only hear down to about 100 Hz. Of course that’s the speakers not the microphone.
I googled low frequency microphones for android and saw some that were $1.5K – a couple orders of magnitude bigger than my budget for this project.
But then I found the sound amplifier app (free). Set it to low frequency. Now, I can hear the sound generator down to about 37 Hz. And if I feed that back into the frequency analyzer I can see a peak there, so I can now record down to that frequency. Free is about what my budget is. Now, I got to do another trip to see if I can record it and see it’s spectrum.
Sep 6, 2023 at 10:36 am #3788495I noticed that I got tinnitus once, for about a minute, when I went up in altitude and my ears were popping. Higher frequency. Occasionally I hear other weird noises. But not voices telling me to do things : )
Sep 6, 2023 at 1:39 pm #3788507Jerry…you hear it but it can’t be recorded. Hmmm…
A scientist would get a hearing test in a sound booth by an accredited audiologist, just to to eliminate the possibility that the humm resides with your hearing.
I know, I know, you’re 60 something but dammit have perfect hearing despite what your wife says. Still, get the hearing test to stick it to your wife, if for no other reason. And who knows? you might discover something. Maybe ‘the humm’ will be solved! Hey its not aliens after all!! but a common issue with 70% of the population as they age.
And no, self administered tests don’t count.
Sep 6, 2023 at 2:21 pm #3788509I love my wife and don’t need to prove that I’m right : )
Sep 6, 2023 at 2:49 pm #3788515jscott — Practicing audiologists only work in the realm of normal human response. Their business does not extend to those with very acute hearing. Very acute hearing can be due to combination of good anatomy and good signal processing. Signal processing is not their bag, and calibrating their acoustics gear beyond the normal range has no payoff.
Jerry, I’m jealous.
Sep 6, 2023 at 3:49 pm #3788516Are you saying I have very acute hearing? : )
I suspect that many other people have heard this but just not thought about it much, it’s subtle.
Maybe someone else will say they’ve heard it.
I think it’s possible this is all internal to my head
Sep 6, 2023 at 3:52 pm #3788517No Jerry, but whatever you do have in the way of hearing, I would like to mimic. At worst, you have a nice fantasy.
Sep 6, 2023 at 4:24 pm #3788519I think it’s possible this is all internal to my head.
If it sounds like the same direction when you rotate your head, then isn’t that fairly certain?
Sometimes sounds can appear to come from false directions due to reflections, and some low frequencies can be less directional, but moving your head would not sound like the same direction unless it is internal, right?
Sep 6, 2023 at 4:35 pm #3788521Steve: yes, I suppose it’s possible that Jerry, who like many of us here is past retirement age, may have superhuman hearing, or anyway hear better than many animals and 99.99% of human beings. OR:
Jerry may be experiencing age related hearing issues, that are common to the majority of the population.
Jerry has a scientific mind. I’ll let him weigh the options.
Hearing loss often progresses slowly over many years, so that we don’t notice. Same with tinnitus: it becomes part of our everyday reality and isn’t noticed until we are, say, alone in an extremely quiet environment.
I think that suggesting that Jerry not get tested because audiologists won’t recognize his superhuman hearing abilities, or because they can’t measure tinnitus, is, well….wrong headed. Believe me, audiologists are familiar with tinnitus and its effects.
Jerry, sorry if my attempt at a joke earlier involving getting even with your wife was in poor taste. Of course you have a good relationship with your wife!
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