What could be making this sound?

[Muse]

OK, I have tinnitus, but this isn't "in my head." I live in Berkeley and there's this sound I hear a lot of the time coming, I think, from a certain house that borders my property. My tinnitus is very high frequencies, maybe a couple of them, but this sound is much lower. I just installed a test tone generator, and I think it's around 570 cycles/sec. I can hear it right now. To characterize it, it's about the tone I'd expect from an air raid siren. It's constant in pitch and volume, seems to me it waivers just a bit in volume, but that could be environmental factors making it seem that way. It's not real loud (I'm about 100 feet from the house, and in doors), but loud enough where I hear and notice it. Once in a while it stops for a few seconds (maybe 10-20 seconds) and then starts again and keeps going. It seems to go on and on without end except for those short interruptions. A lot of the time it's not there at all, so whatever's causing it (some machine?) isn't happening all the time. I have noticed this for years. Here in the city it's never really silent, but sometimes I really like as much silence as I can get, and I perceive this sound as just more noise pollution.

I don't want to knock on the guy's door, obviously. I think I've seen him occasionally in his yard doing some yard work (an older guy, and at such times he's usually using an obscenely loud weed wacker), and he doesn't seem friendly, and I've never had a conversation with him. Haven't seen him in years, maybe. A few years ago I had occasion to knock on his door and exchange a few words because I was making a change in my house that required me to get signatures from all my neighbors. I guess he seemed civil enough, but I don't want to engage him about this.

It just went off a few seconds, then back on. It stopped again after a couple of minutes and then resumed after less than 5 seconds.

Any guess what this might be? A dialysis machine? Some other medical device? An air treatment system?

 

[AstroManLuca]

Could be The Hum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

 

[Muse]

Could be The Hum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum

Uh uh, this is almost exactly 570 cycles/second and is either there or it is not. I'm certain this is caused by some device, almost certainly in that guy's house.

 

[Anubis]

 

[Muse]

Aliens, sorry, I don't find that funny. No offense, though...I've got my feet on the ground. Honestly, just like I said, I'm just looking for ideas. Maybe someone has experience with something like this. I figure there's some device, probably a common device that people might have in their homes that is making this noise, but I just have never had experience with it from the inside perspective. Dialysis, air filtration, water purification, something of that nature. I don't believe a refrigeration system or freezer would do this.

 

[Muse]

It just stopped for about 90 seconds and started again. Those silence intervals vary a lot.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Does it vary with the temperature outside?

Maybe it's his furnace draft inducer motor on the bum. The sound would resonate through the exhaust and intake pipes, making a really weird noise.

 

[lxskllr]

Does it vary with the temperature outside?

Maybe it's his furnace draft inducer motor on the bum. The sound would resonate through the exhaust and intake pipes, making a really weird noise.

This sounds very plausible to me.

 

[Muse]

Does it vary with the temperature outside?

Maybe it's his furnace draft inducer motor on the bum. The sound would resonate through the exhaust and intake pipes, making a really weird noise.

It's never occurred to me that it may vary with the temperatures/seasons. I'll keep this in mind.

I went outside yesterday afternoon and had a good listen at the property line. I'm sure it's coming from his house. Standing at the fence, about 30' from the back door of his two story house I'd estimate at 1600 square feet, the sound is a lot more complex than what I make out inside my house (i.e. in my bedroom). I hear the ~570 cycle tone in my house but outside it's got a lot more going on, I think a motor is involved and there's whooshing, churning, maybe some whistling, all that kind of thing. It almost sounds like what I'd expect to hear if a vacuum cleaner were on, but obviously noone keeps a vacuum cleaner on for hours at a time. I don't hear it right now and it's 3:45 AM. I have to wonder if it's a heating system. I'd expect to hear that kick on occasionally, kick off occasionally during the day, more on in the evening and at least some of the time during the night and early morning. It doesn't seem to have that pattern. It's persistently on for stretches with those short off moments ranging from 3-5 seconds to a minute or two. I have to think it's not there at all for hours as well.

 

[Rubycon]

It's never occurred to me that it may vary with the temperatures/seasons. I'll keep this in mind.

I went outside yesterday afternoon and had a good listen at the property line. I'm sure it's coming from his house. Standing at the fence, about 30' from the back door of his two story house I'd estimate at 1600 square feet, the sound is a lot more complex than what I make out inside my house (i.e. in my bedroom). I hear the ~570 cycle tone in my house but outside it's got a lot more going on, I think a motor is involved and there's whooshing, churning, maybe some whistling, all that kind of thing. It almost sounds like what I'd expect to hear if a vacuum cleaner were on, but obviously noone keeps a vacuum cleaner on for hours at a time. I don't hear it right now and it's 3:45 AM. I have to wonder if it's a heating system. I'd expect to hear that kick on occasionally, kick off occasionally during the day, more on in the evening and at least some of the time during the night and early morning. It doesn't seem to have that pattern. It's persistently on for stretches with those short off moments ranging from 3-5 seconds to a minute or two. I have to think it's not there at all for hours as well.

Do you have a way to record it? (smart phone)
If so post it (preferably in a decent quality format) so we can give it a listen.

Could be a Trane (GE) heatpump. Those rotolock hermetic compressors could be loud hummers!

 

[squirrel dog]

I too have tin thing going on,and I also was bothered by a similar situation.I tracked it down to my neighbors window ac unit in his shop.It cycled with the temps as well.

 

[Muse]

Do you have a way to record it? (smart phone)
If so post it (preferably in a decent quality format) so we can give it a listen.

Could be a Trane (GE) heatpump. Those rotolock hermetic compressors could be loud hummers!

No smart phone but I do have an iRiver H140 that does a good job. Maybe I'll give it a shot when I hear it again, not hearing it today. I just have a notion that it's not a heating system, that wouldn't be so erratic, I think.

How can I post a sound file? I think they closed down megaupload and yousendit has become for money only, or so it seems. I can make an MP3.

 

[lxskllr]

How can I post a sound file? I think they closed down megaupload and yousendit has become for money only, or so it seems. I can make an MP3.

http://www.toofiles.com/en/audios-upload.html

 

[Red Squirrel]

http://bayfiles.com is another often overlooked uploading site.

 

[Muse]

Thanks for the links to those sites. Bookmarked! :awe:

 

[allenk09]

It's a pulsar spinning 570 times per second and you have sensitive ears.

 

[Muse]

It's a pulsar spinning 570 times per second and you have sensitive ears.

Actually my hearing isn't that good. But I'm far from deaf. When I notice it, it is annoying.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Uh uh, this is almost exactly 570 cycles/second and is either there or it is not. I'm certain this is caused by some device, almost certainly in that guy's house.

The easiest way to find out is to ask VERY politely if he can shut off his power for 2 minutes. If not, I am sure an enterprising person such as yourself can figure out how to make this happen.

 

[Jeff7]

No smart phone but I do have an iRiver H140 that does a good job. Maybe I'll give it a shot when I hear it again, not hearing it today. I just have a notion that it's not a heating system, that wouldn't be so erratic, I think.

How can I post a sound file? I think they closed down megaupload and yousendit has become for money only, or so it seems. I can make an MP3.

A ZIPped WAV file would be better. (Or FLAC.)
The conversion to MP3 will really mess up the recorded data for purposes of any kind of analysis.

Goldwave has spectrograph and FFT visualizers that can show the sounds, and determine the frequencies. Ideally, a recording would include ambient sounds, and then what happens when this other noise is present.

 

[Rubycon]

A ZIPped WAV file would be better. (Or FLAC.)
The conversion to MP3 will really mess up the recorded data for purposes of any kind of analysis.

Goldwave has spectrograph and FFT visualizers that can show the sounds, and determine the frequencies. Ideally, a recording would include ambient sounds, and then what happens when this other noise is present.

Best left to the ear.

Try to record at 32 bit 1MHz or 1bit 28MHz in PCA.

Just kidding.

16/44.1 PCM lossless is fine.

 

[dbailey]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8c52/

 

[Muse]

A ZIPped WAV file would be better. (Or FLAC.)
The conversion to MP3 will really mess up the recorded data for purposes of any kind of analysis.

Goldwave has spectrograph and FFT visualizers that can show the sounds, and determine the frequencies. Ideally, a recording would include ambient sounds, and then what happens when this other noise is present.

The iRiver (I have an H140 and H120) can record to a variety of formats including WAV. I'll make such a recording.

I'm not going to hop his fence, but I guess I can try something like use a megaphone to focus the sound into the microphone input on the recorder. This may alter the recording a little but it will certainly tend to amplify the sounds coming from the house in relation to the ambient noises of the town. It would be best by far if I can get the recording during the early morning (e.g. 3:30AM) when the ambient noise is at a minimum.

 

[Muse]

Best left to the ear.

Try to record at 32 bit 1MHz or 1bit 28MHz in PCA.

Just kidding.

16/44.1 PCM lossless is fine.

Yes, I believe that will be the spec.

 

[allenk09]

Best left to the ear.

Try to record at 32 bit 1MHz or 1bit 28MHz in PCA.

Just kidding.

16/44.1 PCM lossless is fine.

I can record 2Mhz @ 32bit in .wav, might even be able to go up to 10Mhz haven't checked.

 

[Muse]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8c52/

Oh shit, that's not funny. There used to be other people living with me in this house. Most of them were very cool and instinctively adopted the "live and let live" philosophy that makes life easier for everybody in the long run. However, some people like to get under other people's skin. There was this one room mate from hell. His room shared a wall with mine, and the son of a bitch would leave his TV or radio on, lock his door and leave the house. He didn't move without first breaking some windows on purpose in a sort of tantrum. I still find window glass in the dirt outside sometimes. I think he thought he was clever. I understand prankster-ism, but just trying to annoy people can get pretty insipid. Myself, I don't want to be regarded as anyone's problem.