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Old 04-16-2018, 05:55 PM   #1
Armstrong
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Question Alton "Hum"

On March 3rd a low frequency hum started up, and has not stopped since.
I live on a hill near the "floating bandstand" It is as if something has gone on-line, such as a steam plant. The hum pulsates, changes pitch and intensity.
It seems to be louder indoors as if travelling through the ground.

We have driven to different locations in Alton such as near Prospect Mt., the Christian campgound and even Gilford.

Has anyone else experienced hearing this hum?
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Old 04-16-2018, 06:07 PM   #2
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Default The Hum in NY Times and UK Sun

There are excellent articles on the "Hum", it extends beyond Alton.
It is not Sci-Fi


https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/562262...ise-residents/


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/w...ndsor-hum.html
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Old 04-16-2018, 06:13 PM   #3
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Default Alton hum

Google the Taos hum.

This apparently is a world wide phenomenon that has gone on for years.
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Old 04-17-2018, 04:57 AM   #4
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Question Infra-Sound? Wind Farms? Aeolian Mega-Flute?

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Originally Posted by Armstrong View Post
On March 3rd a low frequency hum started up, and has not stopped since. I live on a hill near the "floating bandstand" It is as if something has gone on-line, such as a steam plant. The hum pulsates, changes pitch and intensity. It seems to be louder indoors as if travelling through the ground. We have driven to different locations in Alton such as near Prospect Mt., the Christian campgound and even Gilford.
Has anyone else experienced hearing this hum?
Although "the weather" has been considered in such studies, check the direction and intensity of winds in your area. Strong March winds may have removed the covering of a large round structure, like a silo, a well, or a water tank, producing "standing waves" inside the cavity.

Florida has been installing utility poles made of lightweight composite materials when replacing wood and concrete utility poles. A strong NNE wind in my area causes an annoying low-frequency hum from the only FRP pole in my neighborhood. A long series of paired holes appear along its full length, making it a giant low-frequency flute! Except that the hum is not particularly harmonic, the hum could be termed a monotonous "tune".

As the frequency is a low one—and intermittent—it took weeks to find the source was a single pole just down the street! This is a windy spot, so when strong winds come directly from the east, the uppermost wires produce a powerful—even scary—droning.

See Aeolian Harp or Aeolian Flute.

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The wind-flutes operate on the beer-bottle effect where a jet of wind passes over a fipple and sets up standing waves inside the cavity. Blackburn has designed a wider mouthpiece that is more efficient at catching the wall of wind as it passes over. Unlike the wind-harps, the wind-flutes respond to higher, shorter bursts of wind. With a stack of them of different sizes and set at different directions the space comes alive with anything from burbling to an asthmatic church organ.

.
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Old 04-17-2018, 05:21 AM   #5
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Default Blowin' in the Wind

Thanks, ApS, for the very interesting explanation. 🐻
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Old 04-17-2018, 01:44 PM   #6
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Default Alton hum wind not a factor

I have studied the wind over the past month. It does not seem to matter what the intensity or direction. It is there on calm nights, rainy nights, windy nights.
Not an asthmatic church organ, more like a really bad electronic imitation of one. The pitch ranges from Low c to Low f (most likely overtones from a much lower pitch) and varies in intensity. I feel vibrations from it.
Did not think of telephone poles. You are right, it is very hard to find a source.
One article mentioned that 2 % of the population can hear it. Lucky me!

Anyone else out there with keen hearing?
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Old 04-17-2018, 02:01 PM   #7
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60 HZ transformer hum?


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Old 04-17-2018, 07:32 PM   #8
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Alton Monks?
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Old 04-17-2018, 10:05 PM   #9
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Default

I had a similar hum in Ma. It drove me crazy for a week and my wife couldn't hear it. It would come and go and had me thinking that I might have had some sort of ear damage. Finally at 3 AM, I followed the hum by foot(couldn't hear it in the car) and traced it to a large generator temporarily supplying power to a building that had no electricity due to a flood.A week later, the generator was gone as well as the hum.
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Old 04-18-2018, 09:48 AM   #10
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Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by pm203 View Post
I had a similar hum in Ma. It drove me crazy for a week and my wife couldn't hear it. It would come and go and had me thinking that I might have had some sort of ear damage. Finally at 3 AM, I followed the hum by foot(couldn't hear it in the car) and traced it to a large generator temporarily supplying power to a building that had no electricity due to a flood.A week later, the generator was gone as well as the hum.
Sounds like a good start to a horror movie...
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Old 04-19-2018, 10:30 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by Slickcraft View Post
60 HZ transformer hum?


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Bingo!! There's transformers everywhere. I'm not saying they're all humming but it certainly is a possibility some are! Any change in the grid could create this.
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Old 04-19-2018, 01:28 PM   #12
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There are transformers or “ballasts” that I hear when I take my dog for a late walk. The bigger outdoor light have them.
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Old 04-20-2018, 04:33 AM   #13
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Question Well, There's This...:

Opened an astrophysics page, and found this revelation:

Quote:
Luckily, it’s possible to learn something from the host of weaker signals that collectively form an unresolved background (Fig. 1).

Think of listening to frogs croaking in a swamp: We can pick up clear songs from the nearest frogs, but we can also hear an indistinct hum from the thousands of frogs that are farther away. The volume of this background hum provides a measure of the frog population. Similarly, the amplitude of the unresolved background in LIGO and Virgo’s detectors can tell us about distant black hole mergers that occurred when the Universe was much younger.

Source: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v11/36
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Old 04-20-2018, 02:21 PM   #14
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Default Watch out

Criminal minds had an episode about a HUM. It drove people insane...Just saying!
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Old 04-20-2018, 03:23 PM   #15
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The frequency matters.

South Park had an episode on this.

Don’t search it if you are prim and proper.
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