[Paddlewise] Storm Whistle vs. Fox 40

I just picked up a Fox 40 so that I could redo my earlier Storm Whistle
vs. air horn test, this time using the Fox 40 in place of the air horn.
As before, I ran a test of audibility in the presence of significant
background noise (two motors and a hydropulse boiler), with the listener
inside a house, behind a wall with windows. 

The bottom line is that these are both terrific whistles. The Fox 40 has
a higher pitch than the Storm, and is much smaller (roughly a third the
size). But it is nearly as audible as the Storm. I would need to do a
few more tests to be highly confident in my results, but based on my
initial tests it seems as though the Storm can be heard from about 10-15
percent farther away, which isn't much given the much smaller size of
the Fox 40 (and given that it is a pea-less whistle). Of course the
results from tests such as these depend on the nature of the background
noises, the hearing of the listener (my wife, in this case), and the
person blowing the whistle (the Storm seems to require a bit more effort
to get maximum volume, so it works well for "blowhards" such as myself).
Neither whistle has quite the range of an air horn, but when within
range both whistles are very noticeable due to their high pitches. At
most distances they are actually more noticable than the air horn that I
tested. 

Quite frankly I am surprised by how well these whistles work. I have
always carried an air horn, and was skeptical about the efficacy of
these wimpy little whistles, but that was before I tested them. 

TWEEEEEEETT!!

Dan Hagen
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