Monthly Project - July 2013

[PetrifiedWood]

For this month's project, improvise a signalling device.


This can be anything from a wooden whistle, to one of the pop can whistles, to a mirror, to a flag, etc. The only requirements are that it is attention-getting and is something you made rather than something you bought.

Have fun!

[John Van Gelder]

How about 120 gr. of FFF in a .54 plains rifle, that is pretty attention getting..?     Or perhaps     (. . .  _ _ _  . . . )   by making a spark off the battery terminals on you vehicle.  The resulting electromagnetic radiation would travel infinitely, (theoretically) 

Before making any sort of signaling device. you would have to know that there was someone to see it, otherwise it is just a note in a bottle.

[PetrifiedWood]

I've read that rubbing a wire along an old file while connected to a car battery makes a very effective broadband spark transmitter.

[John Van Gelder]

PW

It is still a bit random..   From my days in electronic intelligence, there are more people monitoring the  radio frequency segment of the EM band than there are watching the skies for falling "real estate".

Macaroni's early attempts were just that "spark gap" transmissions.    If you run a wire to the radio antenna, and then intermittently short it out on a battery terminal of your vehicle, (you have to see the arc to know it is working, you have a signal that is traveling at just below the speed of light,  covers the entire EM spectrum, ( like lightening) and reaches to "infinity".     

[Moe M.]

PW

It is still a bit random..   From my days in electronic intelligence, there are more people monitoring the  radio frequency segment of the EM band than there are watching the skies for falling "real estate".

Macaroni's early attempts were just that "spark gap" transmissions.    If you run a wire to the radio antenna, and then intermittently short it out on a battery terminal of your vehicle, (you have to see the arc to know it is working, you have a signal that is traveling at just below the speed of light,  covers the entire EM spectrum, ( like lightening) and reaches to "infinity".   

  I had an electric griddle/waffle iron once that used to pick up a local AM radio station,  on Sunday mornings I'd make pancakes or waffles to the sounds of the Sunday morning Poka parade.   
                                                                                                                                           

  John,  did you mean Marconi instead of Macaroni ?   

[MnSportsman]

I'll probably try to go out "in the woods", & get a willow branch to make a willow whistle. Or, maybe make a "smoke" tripod out of natural materials I find in the woods... Something a bit less "technical" than using batteries or arcing sparks....

[WoodsWoman]

Attention getting huh?  Mmmm.. dont suppose taking my shirt off would do?   

On the techie side of things the show on Alaska Coast Guard said the using your phones light and doing a big circle with it facing the helicopter is very bright in there night vision 'eyes'.

On the bushcrafting side..  I'll have to think on for awhile.   The only thing that comes to mind on a shoreline would be using debri' to spell something. 

WW.

[Angerland]

I have an idea and after this weeks cabin trip I might have some pics to share...

[John Van Gelder]

Moe

My spell checker turned a communications pioneer into a  casserole....

Here is my entry into this months project, it is pretty rough, but nothing you cannot do out on the trail with you hatchet and a knife.  The string is a Flemish splice bow string I made for one of my long bows..   

About whistles, I could have taken a picture of my fingers, a bit difficult,  My two "little" fingers inserted into the corner of my mouth will make a much louder whistle than any thing you can do with a whittled stick, and I don't have to worry about leaving that whistle in my "other" pack...

[WoodsWoman]

John, what is that?  How does it work? 

And I've always wanted to know how to whistle using fingers.  I never could figure it out. 

Every now and then I can get a grass blade between thumbs to work as a whistle. Not very loud tho.  Just messes with my dogs and makes them mad.  ha.

WW.

[PetrifiedWood]

Looks like a bullroarer!

[John Van Gelder]

PW

I am impressed..

WW

As PW stated it is a "bull roarer",  a very low frequency communication device used by a lot of primitive folks, but I became aware of it on one of my visits to Australia.  There are variations on this theme, the main idea is that the device is kind of a blade, the leading edges are sharp and the center of the device is thicker.   You swing it around on a cord of some sort, and it spins.  It spins quite fast, and achieves resonance, the sound will actually travel further than a high frequency sound like a whistle.   These are kind of fun to make,  when your "noise maker" is working properly it "flies".  Which means, as you spin it around your head, it is spinning along it "long axis", which winds the cord up tight, until it is tight enough to revers the direction of the spin,  The device goes up and down, and the sound changes, all of it own accord.  A fun project and worth the time.  Here is a page that has some links .. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jonsbushcraft.com/images/bullroarertut/IMG_8671.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jonsbushcraft.com/bullroarer.htm&h=467&w=700&sz=92&tbnid=_aKl5yIsqVPSOM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dbullroarer%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=bullroarer&usg=__QUY67B0ohyi-RTV3Q-zxOofiM0A=&docid=WGGbCeR0qg2MEM&sa=X&ei=2yjTUcafKemoiALErYCgBA&sqi=2&ved=0CEAQ9QEwAw&dur=521

[wolfy]

We learned how to make those in Boy Scouts when I was a kid.  BOY'S LIFE MAGAZINE did a 'how-to' article on them one issue.   Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee showed the rest of the world what they were in his first movie!

[John Van Gelder]

Wolfy

On one of my trips to Australia, I got to meet and hunt with a "real" crocodile Dundee.  A "chap" by the name of Bruce Wheribone, an aboriginal, who worked for the Northern Territory Conservation commission, one of his jobs was live trapping and moving "problem" crocodiles.  A really neat guy, he was in the Australian record books for his archery hunting abilities.

We had him come to Alaska for a hunt, we flew back into the base of the Susitna glacier and set up camp, it was glorious early fall weather in the interior of Alaska, 50 deg in the day time, low forties at night, until about the third day, when the temperature dropped down to 10 deg., and we had an inch of snow on the ground, in the morning.  A real treat for a guy from tropical Australia. 

[WoodsWoman]

Thank you very much!  I have learned something new today. I've not heard of these bullroarers before.    Then look simple enough to make.    Question.. does the wood actually twirl as its  spinning around you or is it 'cutting' through the air as your spinning it? 

WW.

[John Van Gelder]

WW

The spinning is what makes the sound.  Here is one that is easy to make, looks like 1/4 plywood.   #t=0s

[itsken78]

bull roarer... i always wondered what those things were called.... me, my brother & sister would grab pieces of broken latice & throw'em across the yard to see who could make it "sing" the loudest.

[John Van Gelder]

 itsken78


Pieces of old wooden shingles will work too..

[WI_Woodsman]

-Sorry I misread the post-

[Little Yellow Jacket]

I want to play! I know it's late but anyway. take a yaupon limb about the size of a pencil and 4" long. Split one end of it right down the middle for about an inch and a half. Insert a yaupon leaf in the slit and trim the leaf flush all the way around the stick. Put it up to your mouth like a flute and blow thru it. Right thru the slit. The leaf vibrates in the slot. It's loud too.

rick

[John Van Gelder]

Little Yellow Jacket

You can do something like that with a blade of grass between the index fingers of both hands held together, your cupped hands helps direct the sound, also quite loud.

[Little Yellow Jacket]

Little Yellow Jacket

You can do something like that with a blade of grass between the index fingers of both hands held together, your cupped hands helps direct the sound, also quite loud.

True JVG! Good catch! Sometime we forget the K.I.S.S. rule.

rick