ultrasonic measuring professional

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
I would like to have some testing done in my home for ultrasonic frequencies. I need to eliminate this as a cause of some developing health issues in my wife and daughter. I am more interested in hiring someone who does this testing on a professional basis, than I am buying equipment. When I do a search on Google in my area, what type of "profession" should I be looking for?

Thanks for your help. It will be very much appreciated.

Jerry
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,157
I doubt that there is any legitimate such thing, but there are probably an army of charlatans willing to take your money and provide you with any sense of security you care to desire. Your belief systems appear to make you ripe for plucking.
 

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
Dismissing me as a rube does not make my concerns go away.

I stumbled across ultrasound as a possible caused of the medical problems when some associates were using their bat tracking equipment and noticed a great deal of feedback coming from my home. They weren't using "toy" bat detection equipment, and there were three people with the same indications. After doing some online reading, I thought it prudent to follow up on ultrasound as a cause by having an assessment done by a professional.

Back at the original question, what type of professional uses equipment which is capable of testing for ultrasonic frequency?

I would indeed be grateful for a response to this question.
 

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I have posted in other places on the internet and there isn't a whole lot out there that test for a wide range of the ultrasonic freq. Most of the testing equipment (mostly to find leaks) is based around a single freq (40khz).
I was also directed to RF engineering firms who could monitor RF emissions, or radiated RF interference using a service monitor or spectrum analyzer. I'm not too sure how to go about finding these engineering firms, but failing other suggestions which would be easier to track down, I will have to dig deeper and find them.
I'm even considering going back to bat locators (which are specifically designed around ultrasound frequencies), but ratcheting it up the pole a bit and finding bat researchers with more scientific and sophisticated equipment. Depending on the source of these "possible" ultrasonic transmissions, I feel the need to have some professional verification of their existance. I can't really get anyone interested who is in a position to investigate (authority) if I present info based on a hobby piece of equipment.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
Wondering if anyone else has even heard of this problem, and how it was handled?
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
I would ask myself one question first. Where would this so called ultrasound be coming from? What would it's possible source be?

I would suspect other environmental sources causing health issues long before I would expect ultra sound. Lead, radon, mold, dust mites, bacteria.......
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,157
Just to be clear, I did not characterize you as a "rube". I did say that an unscrupulous individual, that you might come across, may be able to take extreme advantage of you, given your need for a solution and the limited availability of such people, specifically in that business to make a living. It was a warning to you based on half a century of experience. This was based entirely on you original statement which assumed the existence of such professionals. You are completely free to ignore my advice or take it seriously -- it's your choice. Either way you decide is fine with me.

RF Engineering firms will stare at you quizzically if you ask them about ultrasonics. To them anything less than 100 MHz. is just nervous DC. If you have to ask how much they charge you probably can't afford it. Their fees are commensurate with lawyers: in the range of $350 - $500 /hr.
 

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
Every person I speak with along the line has been helpful. If they weren't able to offer direct help/solution, they pointed me in another direction. Eventually, perhaps I will acquire the help I am seeking. If it's not a high freq (high db) issue, then I'm back at square one and will have to do more research on other possible causes. Now, I'm just trying to either confirm or deny that it's ultrasonic in nature.
Funny thing is, once my wife and daughter leave the house, they seem to leave the problem behind. It does make it difficult to pin down the cause bcz when they arrive for medical tests, there are no symptoms. There has been xrays, blood work, medical ultrasound, colonoscopy, and physical therapy without any definitive results. Plus, other female visitors to our home seem to feel some of the same things, but male visitors do not.
I feel like we're in a science fiction movie.
 

Papabravo

Joined Feb 24, 2006
21,157
You may not think so, but I was trying to be helpful. I really really don't want to see you relieved of a chunk of cash for no practical results. I have absolutely no idea what is or is not causing the problem, and I don't even have any speculative hunches.
 

spinnaker

Joined Oct 29, 2009
7,830
Again, why do you suspect ultrasound? It could be 100 other things in the home.

What could be causing ultrasound emission in your home? Harmonics from machinery maybe? It has to have a source.

Schedule a ultrasonography or electrocardiogram for your wife and daughter and see if it has any effects. Of course they will only emit sound over a given spectrum.

Contact a university audio engineering department. It could make a interesting project for grad students to build a device that can detect ultrasound. 1
 

ISB123

Joined May 21, 2014
1,236
If it was ultrasound you would be feeling constant warmth on your skin and it would affect anybody in the house not just females.
 
Last edited:

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
It all began when some people we know came to our rural home to check out the bat population. Their equipment began making a lot of noise along the house walls. Since my wife and daughter had been having these undiagnosed medical issues, I researched the effects of ultrasound on the body, and an arguable case could be made for it as a cause.

Some of the things they both simultaneously experience is pressure at the ears, popping or snapping/crinkling noise at the back of the neck, unexplained stomach aches that last for days, days of frequent uncontrollable bowel movements where the ones at the end of the session have no smell because the food has traveled thru their bodies so fast, a constant feeling of vibration in their legs which sometimes causes muscle soreness/lameness lasting days. There is no heating of the skin or burning sensation (I think that's microwave freq). When they leave the house, neither of them experience any of this. Aside from some intestinal gas, I have never had any of this happen to me.

To tell the truth, I hate to describe this to anyone because I fully well realize how down right crazy it sounds. So please, get past how it all sounds, and if possible think of a way to help me eliminate/confirm that ultrasound might be the culprit. I'll try to figure out the source, after I identify what is causing the problem - I've already spent days looking everywhere for anything abnormal that could be the cause. I don't think it's any machinery in our house, bcz aside from occasionally using power tools, we have no machinery. Our water pump is 400' down at the bottom of the well. In desperation, I've even thrown the switch at the outside meter box, as well as pulling the main incoming breaker off the elec bus to see if there was any change. The house is isolated in the middle of 40 acres of forest.

RPI (Rensselaer Poly Inst) is close to where I live - perhaps I can interest them in this "project" as you suggest.
 

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
Water here doesn't taste that great, so for years we've gone to a city spring and hauled it home to use for drinking. A couple of years ago we did have some tampering with our well cap, so bought one we could lock onto the pipe. Had it tested not that long ago, but only for e.coli and coliform - didn't have it tested for metals.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,976
You keep talking as though you think the only difference between ultrasound and RF is just the frequency. You do realize that there is a world of difference between "sound" and "radio", right?

Color me skeptical, but you are describing something that has severe, acute symptoms but that is so short-lived that they don't last long enough to get to a medical clinic. Yet even when given higher intensity direct exposure to medical ultrasound equipment, no symptoms occur.

Also, if its affect on women is so pronounced and consistent, then you have a pretty clear course. Have every acquaintance you can think of, male and female, come over and write a one page signed testimonial of the symptoms they experienced or didn't experience. Get a dozen or so of these together and then start contacting medical professionals, particularly any that are involved in clinical research, and show them the testimonials. Don't talk about possible causes, merely that this is a phenomenon that you have been able to document to this degree and suggest that if they can confirm it that there might be an opportunity for a journal paper out of it. Ask if they could simply send a couple of guys and a couple of gals out to your house to spend a couple of hours and document what they experience. I can almost guarantee that if they do that and if they confirm your observations, that you will have no shortage of people interested in exploring your house to get to the bottom of it.
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
14,280
Is there any mining or oil-drilling activity, or heavy industry, within a few miles of your home?
If your home is surrounded by woodland, the concentration of fungal spores or tree pollen could be quite high. Have you eliminated that as a possible culprit?
 

Thread Starter

jerrydon

Joined Dec 2, 2015
9
In most cases, when referring to RF and ultrasound, I am repeating ways to proceed that have been suggested to me by various individuals.

These symptoms have been going on "intermittently" over the past year. It isn't like my family and visitors are always afflicted with these symptoms. There are few constants, and that's what's made it so difficult to address in any scientific or logical manner.

The bat equipment giving off signals inside the house has been my FIRST and ONLY clue as to a possible cause, or abnormal condition. Because ultrasound can't be heard, and only felt (depending on the db), there was never any way I would have ever guessed it was possibly involved.

I am grasping desperately at anything abnormal, and since I have nothing else, want to carry this query through and find out if it can be confirmed by someone with professional equipment ONE way or the OTHER. If evidence of ultrasound can be confirmed, THEN I can most likely get some help.

Imagine how insane it makes us sound to relate first the bizarre symptoms, then that they are intermittent and can't be tested, and now try to claim that they are ultrasound in nature... well, you see the problem. I'm not trying to convince anyone anymore, including anyone here. I only want to grasp at this one bit of information and follow it through. To that end, and since it doesn't seem hopeful that I'll easily find a professional to do it, I just ordered a cheap little bat detector of my own and am very curious what will happen when it arrives.

So, I have just one more question, and hope you can successfully point me. WHO's job/passion/focus/interest in life is ultrasound? What occupation researches it and is intimately familiar with ever aspect? Industry? College? Hobby?

Thanks for sticking with me so far, and all the helpful ideas. I've gotten a lot of help from a number of places online, and it's given me some direction, including avenues to pursue if it turns out not to be ultrasound.
 

Kermit2

Joined Feb 5, 2010
4,162
Biology departments are exploring ultrasound. A diverse group of mammals and insects use ultrasound to communicate and survive.
Did the "Bat researchers" leave any equipment behind? Maybe stuff you were not told about? Did they spend long times alone in the attic or something like that?
 
Top