Long Range Acoustic Device

[scannerboy02]

SAN JOSE, Calif. - San Jose police have a new crime fighting tool.

You might want to hear about it, but you won't want to hear it being used.

They'll be using a dish-shaped, sonic weapon called a Long Range Acoustic Device, or L-RAD.

Police say it will be used mostly as a high-grade sound system to amplify a police officer's order at great distances.

But it can also be used as another of the department's "less-lethal" weapons.

The ear-splitting device is growing in popularity around the globe and has been used by soldiers to flush suspected terrorists out of caves in Afghanistan.

 

[Sownman]

I can't wait till some teenagers get their hands on one.

Steve

 

[commstar]

Active Dential Technology

Forget the listening ability, this is active denial technology.

This technology is used to passively control rioters and other un-friendlies via 'proprietary warning/deterrent tones specifically designed to interact with the human auditory system in a very effective manner by way of specialized modulation and spectral content."

I understand that the military version can be configured to an intensity to make one literally (not figuratively) Sh** your pants. That emergent emotion causes you to want to get out of the area under is control like right now.

Think of it as a non-lethal virtual electric fence with dirty panties as a prize.

The technology was tested on rioters at the WTO conference in Spain a couple of years ago and was quite a success.

More than a couple of rock throwing 20-somethings again literally shat their undies when they rolled this stuff out. Don't know if the civilian version is that potent or not.

Wonderful useful technology!

Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oopr8UEaWJo&feature=related

 

[trooperdude]

So I take it a pair of shooter's ear muffs are not a countermeasure against the "spatial modulation" ?

 

[key2_altfire]

According to the Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LRAD

The LRAD's upper output is 146 dB @ 1 meter. Shooter's earmuffs (or a good pair of earplugs) will give you 26-29 dB of attenuation. So, figure the LRAD's upper end at 146 dB, earmuffs at the lower end at 26 dB, that drops the energy reaching your ears to approximately 120 dB. That's at the low end of pain threshold, but it's also at 1 meter. At, say, 7 meters, I'm sure the sound reaching your earmuffs would be several dB less.

Of course, that's ignoring any sound pressure that can make it to your eardrums via other-than-ear-canal, such as whatever sound reverberates through your skull or penetrates soft tissue.

The Wikipedia entry states that the 146 dB output of the LRAD is optimistic. I did a search on Google News and nothing much more than PR fluff pieces showed up.