Why do you use a whistle with a pea for deaf games.. or is that some inside joke I am missing (:

Fox 40s are pealess but are very loud -- however because of its design there is no detectable vibration. Although it's faint, a vibration emits from a pea whistle, which deaf kids are much more likely to pick up.
I am just speculating though, correct me if I'm wrong.

I would agree, makes sense.

[Edited by tjones1 on Jan 26th, 2006 at 11:41 PM]

I worked a deaf school back in the early '90s and used a Fox. I haven't owned a pea whistle since my first year and haven't used one since my second assignment. We didn't have any problems in our game with our Fox's.

I think your speculation is interesting. But I can't imagine how vibrations from a cork pea that weighs much less than an ounce can possibly be felt by anybody else. I can't feel it when I blow it. Unless you're suggesting that they can be felt in the air, the only other possibility would be the vibration traveling through the official's body, down through their rubber-soled shoes, through the hardword, through the player's rubber-soled shoes and into their body to be felt. That seems pretty unlikely to me.

On the other hand, I've often wondered if the Fox's three-chamber design was an attempt to imitate the sound of the pea whistle by using three dissonant frequencies.

Drizzle, you are spot on, cheers

I would think that pea-whistles make more 'noise' in the process of creating sound - the pea whacking up against its confining chamber; and such noise probably has low frequency components that the Fox 40 lacks. Are deafnesses equal across frequencies?

Fletcher and Munson found that - differently for different frequencies - lower pitched sounds had to be a lot more energetic to create the same perceived loudness as higher pitched ones. This would seem to argue against the pea-whistle getting through better to deaf players.

What is the actual experience of near deaf players???

The pea whistles have a lower tone register and not as many high pitched over tones as the fox, that's why I use the pea, I've got an ear injury that "allows" me to hear over tones that most people can't pick up, and you should be glad, it sounds like h*ll :(

You apparently have heard of Fletcher and Munson but there is more to it than you mention.... the same is true for high frequencies as it is for low. The ear is most sensitive to sounds around the frequencies of the human voice (imagine that). As the frequency goes higher OR lower from that point, it takes an increasing amount of sound pressure to be perceived as the same loudness. The amount of difference depends on the specific sound pressure level and decreases as the volume is increased. That is the principle behind the "Loud" button you some audio equipment.

The fox 40 has a very high pitch. The pea would created vibrations closer to the most sensitive human hearing range. For partially deaf people, the loss is often at the frequency extremes (it's probably different in each individual)...so bringing the whistle frequency more to the middle could help. I have a coworker who is essentially completely deaf. However, there are a few very low frequency sounds that she can hear...if they're loud.

[Edited by Camron Rust on Jan 28th, 2006 at 04:08 AM]

Apparently.