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Development of infrasound detection gear


SWWASAS

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I have been researching infrasound detection gear.    I was hoping to find something off the shelf that was not really expensive.    Rion has a hand held infrasound detector that is capable of recording wave forms down to 5 HZ.     I contacted the company and got a quite for the device.      The device, with recording SD card,   software to analyze what is found,   costs $11,000 dollars.  Calibration to meet some standard costs another $1000.     While 5 HZ is well into infrasound,  it is above what I detected with my digital recorder.    I did find a microphone that can record infrasound down below 1 HZ.    That is $1400 including a preamp,   but the specs do not spell out what you hook it up to.    I suspect it is an oscilloscope but the manufacturer has not confirmed that.      Pocket oscilloscopes are available for under $100 that can record waveforms down below 1 HZ.    The two would be reasonably portable, and light enough to carry in the field.   So good gear,  is available for around $1500.      Many many sound meters are available for under $100 but looking at the specs most have a 20 or 30 HZ low end cutoff.     If you do an amazon search for infrasound detector,  you get dozens but none are capable of detection down into the below 20 HZ range of infrasound.    

 

I do have an Intec infrasound detector.      It is barely portable,  weighs a couple of pounds,  requires an array several feet long,   and it drives a computer that needs to be a laptop to be portable at all.     Campground type of gear and not something that anyone would want to pack around.   It uses barometric principals to sense the infrasound waves.      Its designed purpose was detection of infrasound pressure waves created by earthquakes, thunderstorms, and tornados.    The software is that used by geologists for recording earthquakes.   While the barometric concept could be used on a more partable device I have not found an off he shelf device that uses it.   Those that I have found,   have a cutoff on the low end above infrasound  (30HZ).  

 

So it looks like to get something below a couple of hundred dollars something has to be developed from scratch using a microphone concept or barometric device.    I think that possible but have doubts about how portable it would be.    I don't want anything that weighs more than a couple of pounds that I cannot carry in my pack.   Some low tech devices might detect infrasound but are not going to record it.    I mentioned some smart phone aps that claim to detect and even record infrasound but have not played with them.    One for android devices seems like it is designed to spy on the user.    Anyway I will continue to work the problem.    It is both an engineering and cost challenge.      The most likely route to both detect, and record wave forms is probably using a pocket oscilloscope being fed by a barometric or microphone device.     To get the cost down the barometric or microphone device will have to be fabricated.   I have no desire to produce products to sell,  because of licensing and other factors, but will be very open about how to construct whatever I come up with.     Stay tuned for that.      

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