'Wind Turbine Syndrome' Blamed for Mysterious Symptoms in Cape Cod Town

ABC via Yahoo ^ | October 21, 2013 | Susan Donaldson James

[Nowhere Man]

I know in my 1999 Blazer, I have a Bose stereo with a subwoofer and there are times the subwoofer gets to my mother when she rides with me, even though I mainly listen to talkshows. There are times I have to adjust the treble up to lessen the effect.

[Nowhere Man]

One more thing, most of the time, I can hear the high-pitched flybacks of TV sets too.

[JoeProBono]

[Conspiracy Guy]

LOL

[freekitty]

Yep

[Lazamataz]

One more thing, most of the time, I can hear the high-pitched flybacks of TV sets too.

I used to be able to hear that, on the old Picture Tube sets. If the diagonal hold was off, it made a sound I could identify from the other room. My grandmother would call me in to fix it, but when I heard that sound, I'd just go to her room to fix it. Used to freak her out, like I was psychic or something. LOL

[Nowhere Man]

I used to be able to hear that, on the old Picture Tube sets. If the diagonal hold was off, it made a sound I could identify from the other room. My grandmother would call me in to fix it, but when I heard that sound, I'd just go to her room to fix it. Used to freak her out, like I was psychic or something. LOL

I still mainly use old picture tube sets, we have a 1982 Zenith we've been watching for over 30 years daily. I always remember hearing the flybacks of TV's and computer monitors. IIRC, they emit a sound at 15,750 cycles per second, NTSC at 30 pictures a second times 525 lines (on color TV's, it is at 15,734 cycles). I think in Europe, their flybacks run at 15,625 cycles for PAL/SECAM. I've heard oldtimers from the UK easily hearing the flybacks from the old 405 line Marconi system all the time at 10,125 cycles as well, over there, they call them Line OutPut Transformers (LOPT) or "lopty."

A lot of people still use CRT TV's. I know one guy on an old TV website where he hooked up one of those devices you can surf for videos over the internet to his 1949 RCA.

[IMR 4350]

With AM and talk radio I can hear the whistle but with the AM static breaking it up it’s not really as annoying.

On some FM stations I don’t hear or just don’t notice because I never turn the music up, what little I listen to music, and on others I can hear it even if I turn the sound way down. If I turn the music up to what most people call normal it becomes annoying. Turn it up loud it’s almost all I can hear and it hurts my ears.

Normal loud noise is loud to me but doesn’t bother me.

Gunfire, hammering on steel, engines running, power tools no real problem.

[Nowhere Man]

With AM and talk radio I can hear the whistle but with the AM static breaking it up it’s not really as annoying.

I hear the whistle too. I think it is mainly caused by the fact that sometimes there are two or more stations on the same frequency. This mostly happens at night. The AM stations have a carrier and sometimes when you get two or more carriers, they mix and create a "beat note" and you have your whistle. One carrier might be maybe 400 cycles off the other as well, for example, and you would hear a 400 cycle whistle. Some radios, usually ghetto blasters, have a "beat switch" on the back to help smooth that out, my SCR-3 from Radio Shack has that. I sometimes hear the whistle on KDKA-AM, Pittsburgh, from another station and WKBN-AM out of Youngstown, OH on 570 kc. I always hear the Cuban station, "Radio Reloj" (Radio Clock) under WKBN and hwen it is real cold, winter night, the Cubans "walk over" WKBN-AM

On some FM stations I don’t hear or just don’t notice because I never turn the music up, what little I listen to music, and on others I can hear it even if I turn the sound way down. If I turn the music up to what most people call normal it becomes annoying. Turn it up loud it’s almost all I can hear and it hurts my ears.

Beyond a certain point, the bass of he subwoofer drives me up the wall and loud bass makes me sick too. It also drives Mom up the wall but she is also battling aggressive breast cancer right now (she is going back on chemo after chemo/surgery, they are trying a new drug they released a few days ago) so the illness has some to do with it too, but she always turned up the treble more.

Normal loud noise is loud to me but doesn’t bother me.

Gunfire, hammering on steel, engines running, power tools no real problem.

Sometimes it does for me. I really heard a loud "Whoomp" last week in the neighborhood. I was helping Mom out and she thought one of the cats knocked something over. I told her, "I think we just heard someone's house go up in a gas explosion" as I recalled the last time I heard such a "Whoomp" in 2004. I was right, someone's house did go up, we live a mile away from it and people as far as 6 or 7 miles felt it too. Everyone in my neighborhood came out in the street wonder what was going on. I had my scanner so I told them what was going on and they were relieved that it wasn't near us to affect us.

[CodeToad]

Yep. Low frequency vibrations that might not be able to be heard can drop a person a long distance away. I lived near a bunch of very large generators once and when they got in tune, and they tried never to let them get in tune, it could drop a guy a mile away.

[IMR 4350]

My road is calachie (SP?) rock. I live almost a mile from my front gate.

Every morning, even weekends, about 6-6:30 it sounds like someone in a large truck is coming down my road. Sometimes it’s loud like it’s close and sometimes it’s like a truck about a 1/2 mile away.

For the life of me I can’t figure out where that sound is coming from.

My closest neighbor is about 1 1/2 mile away and the main county road, which is a rock road is about 2 to 2 1/2 miles away and there is no big trucks.

I also used to be able to hear the drag races over in Baytown, TX when I was about 20 miles away and about 40 miles away but not when I was about 30 miles away.

The sound just hit certain spots and not others.

Same thing with those windmills I guess.

[cva66snipe]

It's not far fetched for persons who have unknown Vestibular {Inner and Auditory Processing Disorders}. It can in fact cause some very extreme symptoms. If I understand this right this is low frequency possibly even sub audible {just below detectable hearing} and low frequency can penetrate the human body.

[cva66snipe]

Far fetched my butt. I'm one of those people that certain sounds make me sick. Even though I have a hard time understanding people not looking directly at me or people speaking in a crowd, I can hear a high pitch other people can't hear. It's particularly bad with music which is why I don't listen to much music.

Just curious when this happened do you have spasms in your upper body after a few minuutes. I'm serious. I have a severe auditory processing issues and certain sounds put me into seizures that cause me to shake violently for a few seconds at a time.

Places like LOWES Home Depot etc with back up alarms set me off as does Walmart PA systems cranked way too loud.. I've had this over 18 years. It effects concentation as well.

[IMR 4350]

It doesn’t affect me that way.

It’s a high pitched sound that kind of gives me a sick headache sometimes, almost like a really bad hangover.

[cva66snipe]

It sounds like an Inner Ear Disorder maybe Menieres or similar? Certain frequencies, abrupt weather changes, etc can set me off.

[IMR 4350]

A friend of mine used to listen to loud music then starting about 15 years ago he started turning the music down because it bothered him.

With his job he’s around loud noise every day.

He works building and rebuilding drilling rigs, mainly offshore rigs. Steel on steel banging around him for hours.

Because of the noise he has to wear earplugs. When he takes the earplugs out everything is loud to him.

Even with earplugs he’s lost some hearing in certain sound ranges but at the same time he can hear or possibly just pays attention to sounds he never heard or paid attention to before.

That’s almost exactly the same with me.

I’ve wondered if all people can actually hear the sound but the brain just doesn’t process the sound until you loose some hearing then the brain starts processing the sound to compensate for the loss.

[Nowhere Man]

Yeah, we have a local dirt track for racing and I swear I can hear them racing even though it is like 10 miles away or so. At night, I can hear trains travelling adjacent to the Ohio River even though it is like 3 miles away or more. Sound can carry given the right conditions.

[McGruff]

Oh it’s ok to kill bald eagles

http://news.yahoo.com/study-wind-farms-killed-67-eagles-5-years-160226373.html

but one one woman complains and it’s a crisis.

[cva66snipe]

You are on to something. It likely has to do with auditory filtering. TVA right after this stuff hit me was running a high voltage transmission line across my property which included dozers about 500-600 ft from my home. I'm a day sleeper and when I'd lay down and was almost asleep the darn thing sounded like it was coming through the house. I'd get up and barely hear it.

One doctors theories on this deals with the Cerebellar/Vestibular System where the Inner Ear's signals are processed in the brain. Any breakdown or dysfunction in that communication loop can result in anything from almost unnoticeable symptoms to disability like my cases is.

I've also worked around loud machinery. I've worked around Centrifugal Chill Water A/C units used in large commercial applications. They have a real high pitch sound. But I've had life long Vestibular {Inner Ear} issues. I'm at 60% hearing loss in the talking range and over 40% loss overall. IOW without my hearing aids I can't even hear birds.

BTW Vestibular Disorders are a major culprit in persons having Panic Attacks and being misdiagnosed with Anxiety Disorders. SSDI has me listed as having General Anxiety Disorder. I pinned down the Vestibular origin of it a few years later. I had to retire over 18 years ago at age 36.

[IMR 4350]

I always wondered if thousands of years ago since people needed better hearing to survive they used they hearing more and it was developed better, but now not needing hearing as much to survive the brain does as you said filters the sounds out as unnecessary.

I guess that’s why some people are lite sleepers and some aren’t. An unusual sound can wake you up while a normal sound, even a train going by, wont wake you up.

It’s the survival instinct I guess.

A lot of times I can hear people talk but I can’t understand what they are saying because of background noise.

It’s almost as if nothing gets filtered.