Please Visit Our Sponsor

Miscellaneous #1:- Acoustic Checks- B= 100; S= 0

Some ideas on determining how obvious your balloon play is to your neighbors. <Ret. to Miscellaneous Index>

One of the biggest hazards of our 'hobby' is being discovered by others who might feel our unusual love of toy balloons is a tad bazaar. For this reason most of us, I assume, go to great pains to try to keep or balloon activity private. From the standpoint of visual observation this is usually a fairly simple process and there are numerous places we can go for our fun without being seen. However playing with our toys tends to be noisy, even for non poppers. Inadvertent balloon bursts are unavoidable and most all skin contact with inflated balloons causes squeaking sounds which are readily identified by most people. As a result, acoustic isolation from others is much harder to come by.

In the great outdoors, depending on the ambient background noise level, (cars, planes, wind, etc.) a quality party balloon inflate to burst can be detected as far as three miles down wind during the day and five miles at night. Finding ten or so square miles of known unoccupied land really requires that you travel to the boondocks; like Antarctica or the Australian outback. Therefor, because isolation by distance is untenable since most of us do not live in such sparsely settled areas or are not in a position to travel to one, we have to make do with the physical situations we have available.

Since for most, the enjoyment of our toys is predicated on our fun remaining undetected, it is important to perform balloon acoustic testing on our play area. The test results may show that you have been unduly worried that someone might hear you; then again you may discover that the reason your neighbors whisper to each other as you go by is because the whole neighborhood knows you love busting balloons in your basement. The balloon acoustic test procedure is simple, but implementing it may not be. Things are greatly simplified if you have a partner to act either as the 'buster' or the sound level 'detector'.

Basically all that is required is to break or play with balloons of the same size, manufacturer, and inflation level as you normally use; making a point of eventually popping them because this will happen at some point in time and usually produces the loudest sound. The detector goes to locations where unwanted hearers may be from time to time and checks on how apparent, if at all, of the 'fun' sound would be. In evaluating the level of noticability the detector has to allow for the fact that they are listening for certain specific sounds at a known point in time. Other ears will not be so attuned to detect your unwanted acoustic transmissions, and if they are muffled and of short duration and there are other similar sporadic sound patterns in the background noise, even a fairly loud POP will go undetected. For this reason extended torture of balloons by rubbing and squeezing can create more readily unwanted detection than just popping them off (provided they are well spaced out- not a balloon massacre that produces a machine gun effect).

Since some locations that should certainly be checked are in other people's apartments or houses, some ingenuity will be required to have the 'detector' on the premises at the time of the test noise generation. This gets especially difficult if you don't have a partner to assist you.

Since most of us are solo 'looners, performing this acoustic level check becomes more difficult. If a suitably powerful stereo system isn't available to replicate the sounds of your balloon play then the only balloon sound you will have available will be a burst. Note that even large powerful audio systems will not do a bang up (pardon the pun) job of reproducing a high pressure balloon burst because they can not duplicate the rise time and pressure level that results, so you will essentially get a BOOM instead of a BANG.

The requirement is that the test noise be delayed until the 'detector' is in required position. This is especially true if there are unwanted other ears in the area during the time of the test, which is generally the case.

The simplest way to delay the burst of a balloon is to place it in or near contact with something that heats up sufficiently to cause the rubber to weaken, 300 deg. F+. I personally use an old style soldering iron that produces about a one and a half minute delay from cold start up. Other household items that can be used for this purpose are steam irons, waffle irons. bread toasters (suspend the balloon a few inches above the top slot opening). Generally most hair curling irons do not get hot enough and if they do the delay is excessive and the time to burst very unpredictable. Paint removal heat guns heat up way too fast, allowing only a few seconds to get into position. Although much more dangerous if not done in a cellar or otherwise well away from any flammable material is to use a burning string fuse. In 99% of the cases the exploding balloon will blow out the flame; the other one percent of the time you may loose your house or apartment. In any case, if heat delay is used, get back to your play room on the double to insure that none of the torn rubber is in contact with the heated item our you will have a potential fire and surely an odious situation to deal with.

Sponsored by: www.ashleysextoys.com