Sound Blasting Gear

The final type of sound system is a standard car stereo amplifer  with two external outdoor type speakers. The speakers have two heavy duty magnets attached so that they can be placed on the hood of my Jeep. This type of sound system is very good for putting out extremely loud calls.  Best suited for the mountains when the distance that you are trying to reach is far away.

I have not used this system a lot, preferring the smaller portable units.

In summary – their are dozens of different setups and many variations of sound blasters. Most researchers have their favorite ways of doing things.

As far as responses, I have been very successful using sounds. A vocal response is not necessarily the criteria to judge how successful you are. When nighttime visitors come through your camp rattling door handles, slapping the tops of cars or checking things out that may have been a response to earlier sound blasting.

We are dealing with an animal of very high intelligence and it is always a guessing game as to what will interest them.

If you are in a remote site and not sure if sasquatch frequent the area a very effective technique is to use an electonic bullhorn or megaphone.  They are easy to use and lightweight.

I was taught this method by John Andrews of Washington State. You can listen to my interview in the field with John here: Washington – 48 in ’08.  John’s wonderful recordings can be listened to at Sasquatch Research.net.

Recordings that I have obtained after using the megaphone include:

From:

Unusual Calls

http://www.stancourtney.com/sounds/18_May_2008.mp3

A Walk in the Woods

http://www.stancourtney.com/sounds/2009.05.04_08.mp3

http://www.stancourtney.com/sounds/2009.05.04_09.mp3

Squatchin’ Near Naches, WA

On the 15th and 16th of May, 2009 a group of researchers camped in the mountains west of Naches, Washington while attending the  “Yakima Bigfoot Round-up”.

After a series of calls I recorded three return calls, the first sounded like the Tahoe Scream and the next two sounded like the Illinois Howl.

http://www.stancourtney.com/sounds/2009.05.15_02.mp3

Most of the return calls I have heard have been from a great distance and when recorded were buried down in the white noise.

On the 23rd of May 2005 I was blessed to hear a full blown roar from about 200 yards. I was preparing to head to the creek with my dog in the evening. When I approached the fence which is about 125 feet from our house something near the creek let out a long, loud roar. It sounded like the animal had a very large chest and was in total control of how much volume was produced.

It made me realize that animals only vocalize a certain loudness that is of sufficient volume for the desired effect. To scare a human away from an area they might scream or roar loudly to accomplish their goal of running the humans off. But if they only want to communicate over a short distance why use a loud sound. The louder a squatch is, the more chance of being noticed by humans.

My point being that if I am going out into the night to attract a squatch why not use sounds of a lower volume, say something that can be heard from 100 to 200 yards away and not wake up the whole neighborhood. It certainly is more natural to play back a sound that is softer, then I can move several hundreds yards and do it again. It is more esthetic and it also keeps the local farmers from questioning me about my motives while they are carrying a loaded shotgun.

Birders have started using their iPods in the field to attract birds close enough to identify them. Since iPods do not have external speakers they must use external speakers.

Once such device is the iMaingo2. It weighs about 9 ounces and measures only 6 x 4 x 2, so it is highly portable and convenient to carry and use. The iPod is placed inside the unit and is usable through the clear plastic window.

Recently I tried the unit out while in Colorado. Please see –Rainbow Trout & Sound Blasting. I knew that there was a coyote den about 150 yards from our campsite, so I set my alarm for 3 a.m. I played a recorded lone coyote howl and waited.

To hear the response click here: Coyote chorus

So the unit has been shown to work at close to 200 yards, at least on coyotes.

For sound amplification equipment I will review four general areas of  equipment getting larger and more expensive. I am not stating that any one category is more effective as I don’t think that louder is better.

For this post we will start out with the lowly cell phone. It may sound silly but several years ago I put the Illinois Howl on my cell phone as the ring tone. It is a great conversation starter in public and almost always gets a comment from strangers when I get an incoming call .

At the end of Jun 2006 I told my wife I was going to go down near the creek where we lived and play-back my cell phone ring-tone of the Illinois Howl.  She laughed and said don’t be silly, nothing can hear that ring.  My response was that I bet I can hear that ring-tone from at least 50 feet and a squatch could hear it from at least 200 feet. So I went down into the pasture and stood next to the only tree growing along the fence row. I played two or three ringtones with the phone and went back to the house.

The next day I was down at the creek and as my son and I were walking back up through the pasture along the fence row my son said “Dad, look at that tree.”  My response was well let’s go get the camera and let your mother look at it  too.  When I later asked my wife what she thought she said “I know what caused that but I don’t want to hear about for the next three months!”

Here is my blogpost from the 6th of August 2006.

I don’t like evaluating tree breaks or twists. I don’t recognize them as being bigfoot related. There are just too many other things they could be attributed to: storms, winds, old age. I don’t say that Uncle Harry didn’t do it as some type of territorial marker, I am just saying it is “not my thing.”

On the 1st of July 2006 this twelve foot tall four inch diameter maple tree was snapped in two along the path in the pasture just up the hill feet from my feeding station. There had not been any other damage on my property or my neighbors property. There was a path of knocked down tall grass from the hay field to the east directly to the tree.

Recently I made a comment about how I disliked the term “sound blasting”.

Reader Scott M submitted the following comment :

All methods fall under the concept of Acoustic Attraction…by wood-knocking…by mechanical call…by vocal immitation…by electronic amplification. I’ll settle on “Amplified Acoustic Attraction.” I like “Sound Braodcasting” too.  Keep up the good work.

I really like the term Acoustic Attraction because it takes out the negative image of giant speakers blasting out 120 dB of suspected sasquatch sounds. On the negative side, will readers even know what we are talking about by using a different term.

John Frietas, of  Northern California and BlueNorth.com is generally acknowledged as the “father” of sound blasting techniques.

As time has rolled along techniques have evolved and equipment has been refined.

The field of Acoustic Attraction is huge in the fact that almost any human activity may attract the attention of sasquatches. There are reports (both published and unpublished) of sasquatch activity being associated with the following list:

– Human activity that is normal in the course of daily life.

1. Children playing. Click here for a winter video of my own boys taken years ago.

2. Human babies crying.

3. Vehicles stopping along the woods (day or night).

4. Car doors slamming.

5. Common camping sounds, splitting of wood, campfires.

6. Hikers walking through the woods.

7. Fishing

8. Hunting

9. Berry picking

10. Mushroom hunting

11. Late night parking

and then you can add to the above list more outward human activity.

12. Singing or playing of musical instruments i.e. harmonicas, guitars, Jew’s harps, didgeridoo.

13. Human calls or vocalizations without using electronic amplification.

14. Wood knocks

15. Rock clacking

16. Calls and vocalizations broadcast using sound amplification equipment.