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Directing sound as a concentrated beam?

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riccardo49

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Excuse any obvious ignorance please. I am a newbie here and one at the end of his tether.

Background: A near neighbour chooses to throw random parties in his yard which run until the early hours of the morning. These must, it seems, be accompanied by amplified music. He is not susceptible to reasonable and polite requests from those neighbours who have regular hours and demanding jobs.

Question: Is it possible to transmit sound in a concentrated beam onto his property? A laser would be inappropriate due to cost and potential damage. I don't want to inflict more noise on the other neighbours; I just want Mr Anti-social to know how it feels to be unable to sleep or concentrate on simple tasks like reading.
 
It sounds like what you are talking about is an LRAD, a Long Range Accoustic Device. It is being used by several millitaries right now and is still experimental as far as I know so needless to say that it is hard to find out much about it. I do know that it uses some sort of Piezo device to transmit sound as opposed to the standard connical speaker.
 
The simple answer is yes with a parabolic reflector like a Seattleite dish with a speaker mounted where the LNB would normally go. The larger the dish, the tighter the beam. You may also need to reinforce it since the sound pressure would tend to distort the dish and thus increase the scatter in the side lobes.

However, escalation with a neighbor is never a good idea. It could result with him calling the cops on you for disturbing the peace instead of the other way around.
 
When his music is turned off, he has obviously decided it is time for sleep...and that time is when you can start a little payback.
Assuming from your post that you get up early in the morning to go to work, make as much noise as possible...slam each door you go through, have a radio or TV on loud, stomp up and down the stairs etc. and generally target that noise towards his side of your house so you don't upset your other neighbour.

If you want to continue the noise whilst you are out at work, you could build one of the projects in the link below:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/53854230/8/Project-3—Ghost-Door-Knocker
Be patient, the page takes a while to load.
You could play with the values to give a few knocks on his wall, then say 10 mins of silence followed by more knocks.....all day.
Since you are out at work, it can't possibly be you doing it...perhaps something is faulty in your house?

Another alternative is regarding the actual ownership of the property. If he is the owner, you are out of luck, but if he is renting maybe all the affected neighbours could get together and file a complaint?
 
Question: Is it possible to transmit sound in a concentrated beam onto his property? A laser would be inappropriate due to cost and potential damage. I don't want to inflict more noise on the other neighbours; I just want Mr Anti-social to know how it feels to be unable to sleep or concentrate on simple tasks like reading.

There is a thing called "Audio Spotlight" invented at MIT. It could be used to "send" annoying or spooky sounds to somebody's yard.. And you could keep it on constantly without other neighbors hearing anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AMP3CxGm9I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wJ5Eff7hx0&NR=1
 
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The Audio Spotlight is a copy of a system that was patented years ago and has been used by its inventer as "talking displays" in museums and for language translation in conference halls. When the ultrasonic sound strikes a person or an object then the interference produces real sound that seems to come from the person or object.

Since the ultrasonic waves are very directional then they can be aimed at one person who hears real sound and the person beside him hears nothing.

The ultrasonic "speaker" is an array of many ultrasonic transducers fed fairly high power.

The ultrasonic waves need a special modulation to avoid severe distortion.
 
Here is a sound "laser" kit developed at Penn State: **broken link removed**

I have one. You will need to scale it up a little to be effective.

Bottom line: Do whatever makes you happy. You will not improve the behavior of your rude neighbor, but you may make it worse.

John
 
I'm amazed that there are no laws on sound in your area?

In any residential areas in Australia there are laws limiting sound to between hours of 9am to 9pm or 7am to 7pm or similar. It's common to see cops called out to party noise complaints.

Or just wait until his next party and put on a really creepy fancy dress outfit, get quite drunk and jump the fence and start annoying all his party guests saying you were attracted by "the great loud music" and "you can't wait till the next party too!"...
;)
 
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