Learned something yesterday. Did not quieten my boat down, but quietened everyones elses down. After doing some research earlier I had a brain storm, well not really a storm, but a drizzle of an idea. We had an inter- club fun race yesterday at the Jackson, Tn. lake. I asked Mark Hopper to bring the club DB meter. I scavenged up some materials and on the tail gate of my pickup fabricated a "Hillbilly Anechoic Chamber". This consisted of an empty O'Reilly oil case (Dumpster diving), discontinued design acoustical ceiling tile from Lowes( Cheap), 1" thick polyurethane foam board ( Scrap), 3/4" stryofoam board (Scrap), an empty Go Jo hand cleaner container ( Dumpster diving) and the ever essential Duct Tape. Lined the box with different layers of the materials starting with the denser layer to the outside and progressing to the least dense on the inside to absorb as much of the reflected sounds, the external sounds and the enviromential sounds ( Wind, Ect) as I could. Cut a round hole in one end to fit the Go Jo container. Cut the end out of the Go Jo container, lined it with foam to make the chamber sensitive to sound only from one direction and inserted this into the hole in the box. Cut a small hole in the opposite side of the chamber for the DB meter. This being pointed at the opening of the Go Jo container with nothing between the meter and the sound. The results were very interesting. Moving the meter from the outside of the chamber to the inside of the chamber resulted in about a 3 to 5 DB DROP in the sound level. With the meter inside of the chamber it was very selective to the direction of the sound source. Hardly affected unless the boat was directly in front of the opening of the anechoic chamber. One other thing that really got my attention was when someone walked between the anechoic chamber and the passing boat, the sound level INCREASED. Sometimes as much as 3 DB. This wasn't a very scientific test but it did show that we could control some of the variables. Maybe something that should be looked into in the monitoring the sound levels of our boats. One other piece of information that I found is that the human body resonates at ABOUT 400hz. This figures out at about 24,000 rpm in boat language. Could be one cause of the different DB readings from the same boat. Too many Lookie- Loo's around the DB meter. Just my thoughts.
Very interesting test Charles. What you did was isolate the dB meter from the surrounding noise and made it more directional. Who said the we boys down here in the south are dumm and fell off a watermelon truck.
Because we did not fall off a watermelon truck it was a cotton wagon.
Mark
Ya! , Me and Cooper were eating chilly and farting every time Mark went by the meter at the Nats
Just Kidding Mark!!!! Don't take it seriously! We only did it when Mr Waddle went by.
Well Wesley, atleast we know the truth now. I personnally do not know who you are but i do not believe Mr Cooper would do that to anyone.
O' by the way I have plenty of M-80's to throw at the meter the next time you go by the meter and I am there (just to repay you) and if that does not work there is always plan
b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,a2,b2,c2 and this list goes on.
You know the worst thing about me is that is hard to tell if i am joking or not
Allen
P.S.
Also on a side you note you had better invent or invest in some type of megaphone to get that tooter of yours up to the level that it will take me to get disqualified if that is your intention.