From: John De Armond Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel Subject: Re: I want some loud horns Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 01:09:42 -0400 Message-ID: <c56ja0905drjoc736hokps1ub2duealosr@4ax.com> On Mon, 17 May 2004 07:49:51 -0400, "Jeff W" <jeffwhite@wowway.com> wrote: >Try this. http://www.pmmi-electronics.com/horn.html. Ouch, $700! > OUCH is right. Effectively, an MP3 player and a couple of 30 watt burglar alarm speakers. $200 would be more in line. If you want a REALLY loud horn for not much money, buy an emergency vehicle electronic siren and use only the horn function. Everyone has probably heard the loud "GRONK" that fire trucks and ambulances make, usually as they're going through a red light. This is the horn function. Most sirens have a handy PA function too. I mount the control box under the dash or in the engine compartment where the controls are out of reach so that some cop can't accuse me of using a siren on a civilian vehicle. Very compact, behind-the-grille speakers are available, commonly used on unmarked cars. I have never paid more than $75 for a complete 100 watt setup. Because the larger departments tend to not reuse sirens when they trade vehicles, used ones are common. Two-way radio shops and ham fests are two good sources. Funny this would come up. Tonight I had just started installing a unit on my new GMC/Izuzu MD truck. I'm amazed that the japs would put such a wimpy horn on a a real truck! John From: John De Armond Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel Subject: Re: I want some loud horns Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 17:05:41 -0400 Message-ID: <fvtka0p3o4sl6ck7ur71gop61bo1bi5jlm@4ax.com> On 18 May 2004 19:46:06 GMT, mvp@web1.calweb.com (Mike Van Pelt) wrote: >In article <r2av805tnnq751ebego8uadb56jicmuvo3@4ax.com>, >GBinNC <GBinNC@yahoooo.com> wrote: >>I wired in a separate button. There were lots of times I had >>legitimate use for a horn but didn't want to scare everybody half to >>death. I used the big ones sparingly <g>. > >I've often wished I had a special "YOU MORON!" horn ... I recently >ran across a description of exactly the sound I want - "The sound >of a 40-ton truck loaded with live pigs locking up the brakes at >80 miles per hour." Funny you'd mention that. I designed a horn for a colleague just like that back in the late 70s. His description was "A Sand Mountain Pig wagon careening down the hill with the brakes locked, the horn blaring and the pigs screaming". We played around in a friend's studio (analog synthesizers) until we got the sound he wanted. I got a cassette tape with the audio. I took it to work and use a VERY expensive data acquisition system to digitize the tape while it was played back very slowly (to accommodate the system's sample rate.) From there the sound file got edited byte by byte in a debugger until it would loop seamlessly. Then it was burned to EPROMs. These eproms were driven by a counter and they in turn drove a R/2R D/A converter resistor network that was in turn connected to a siren PA microphone input. This thing was brutally effective. Lay on the "horn" and people turned and ducked for cover. It would scare me even when I knew it was coming. Today it would be trivial to use something like Cool Edit Pro to construct the sound file on a PC and then transfer it to one of the el-cheapo voice recorder modules. Feed the output of the module to a siren PA mic input and there you are. John |