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There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

nytimes.com

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Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#61

Post by cshenton »

acomjean wrote: post #35

We had a "hum" sound in cambridge MA. Its one of those sounds when you walk through you don't think anything of it, but if you live near it.... (I was one of the lucky as I couldn't hear it from my bedroom). Incredibly hard to track down, it was determined to be Fans on top of a building. And it was fixed. The sound bounces around so much, just walking around I couldn't pinpoint it on a couple nights of trying. Its w…

We had a similar issue at an apartment block in Australia. The most amusing sight was a bunch of residents, all wandering the corridors trying to find which room was the source, but as in your case it was fans on the roof.

Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#63

Post by mbell »

kaplun wrote: post #44
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19

Three people so far have suggested in the comments here it should be "easy" to triangulate it. Note that according to Zug Island's Wikipedia page, "As of April 2013, a Canadian scientist is using sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to precisely identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it" and that "the City Council had already sp…

What I don't understand is if they are just trying to locate sound source or looking for other waves, such as electromagnetic ones. When I walk under high voltage trellises I always hear my head humming.

You don't 'hear' EM waves. What you're hearing near high voltage lines is coronal discharges near the conductors; The field strength is high enough to ionize the air around the conductor causing it to move around, moving air = sound.

Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#65

Post by throwaway613834 »

I'm listening to this right now [1] and (for those of you who don't have a chance to hear it right now) it definitely isn't what I would call a "hum"... that's way too gentle and not bass enough to describe this sound. I'd call it more like low-frequency rumbling (though that's probably not a perfect word for it either).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPDILKQjJW8

Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#67

Post by throwaway613834 »

acomjean wrote: post #35

We had a "hum" sound in cambridge MA. Its one of those sounds when you walk through you don't think anything of it, but if you live near it.... (I was one of the lucky as I couldn't hear it from my bedroom). Incredibly hard to track down, it was determined to be Fans on top of a building. And it was fixed. The sound bounces around so much, just walking around I couldn't pinpoint it on a couple nights of trying. Its w…

How did they figure it out?

Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#68

Post by jsmthrowaway »

rmason wrote: post #51
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19

Three people so far have suggested in the comments here it should be "easy" to triangulate it. Note that according to Zug Island's Wikipedia page, "As of April 2013, a Canadian scientist is using sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to precisely identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it" and that "the City Council had already sp…

They need to deploy a shot spotter that cities use to quickly locate gunfire and dispatch police. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/06/28/shotspotte...

I'm always disappointed to see that people think the description on that system's tin is its actual purpose. It does that, yes. What else?

Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#69

Post by joenathanone »

vortico wrote: post #59

Garbage, sensationalist title with mentions of "unknown origin". Even the article says the likely source is Zug island, but of course this wouldn't get as many clicks. According to the mentioned University of Windsor report ( http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_... ) "A previous study confirmed the existence of the low frequency excitation and estimated the source to be in the vicinity of Zug…

Findings from your link, seems you didn't read it.

Number 1 "We do not find common signals at both arrays which could plausibly be associated with the Hum. We are unable to geolocate a definite source for the Hum using common cross-bearings."

Number 5 "The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island"

Re: There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

#70

Post by kawfey »

rmason wrote: post #51
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #19

Three people so far have suggested in the comments here it should be "easy" to triangulate it. Note that according to Zug Island's Wikipedia page, "As of April 2013, a Canadian scientist is using sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to precisely identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it" and that "the City Council had already sp…

They need to deploy a shot spotter that cities use to quickly locate gunfire and dispatch police. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/06/28/shotspotte...

With laughable accuracy: http://fox61.com/2013/05/22/fox-ct-investigation-is-costly-g...

Part of the problem is multipath due to reflections caused by buildings, hills, trees, etc. Anytime you listen to thunder or fireworks the rumble persists due to reflections off of such things. It's incredibly difficult to algorithmically remove multipath from terrestrial sources.

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