Loudspeaker Driving Me Crazy

[Louie77]

When we lived in South Korea we had them in our apartment. Granted, they didn't play loud music but went on talking and talking. We were told it was news about the building, garbage, military service for the men,... We couldn't turn them off or lower the volume. It was about 2 or 3 times a month and lasted for about an hour sometimes.

Very invasive.

[MESmith]

When we lived in South Korea we had them in our apartment. Granted, they didn't play loud music but went on talking and talking. We were told it was news about the building, garbage, military service for the men,... We couldn't turn them off or lower the volume. It was about 2 or 3 times a month and lasted for about an hour sometimes.

Very invasive.

They were actually in your apartment? Or do you mean your apartment building?

[GreenSnapper]

When we lived in South Korea we had them in our apartment. Granted, they didn't play loud music but went on talking and talking. We were told it was news about the building, garbage, military service for the men,... We couldn't turn them off or lower the volume. It was about 2 or 3 times a month and lasted for about an hour sometimes.

Very invasive.

They were actually in your apartment? Or do you mean your apartment building?

Yes. They have it in Japan too, not everywhere, more often in rural areas. Inside the house and cannot be switched off.

Annoying speakers in some town centers too.

[MESmith]

Inside the house and cannot be switched off.

Not even with a screwdriver & wire cutters?

[sotsira]

They did this in Pattaya many years ago.

Fortunately it did not last for long.

They still have them in Soi Kow Pai and still use them.

[GreenSnapper]

Inside the house and cannot be switched off.

Not even with a screwdriver & wire cutters?

Law abiding Japanese wouldn't even think about such crimes....

[sensei]

It's been quiet since yesterday. I am sure it will be back tomorrow.

All the wires are way above the ground and well beyond reach.

The speakers are also located right in front of the village sales office and the guard house is on the opposite side. Trying to do something myself might be a little risky. I will the the next day's headline on Thaivisa for sure if a foreigner gets caught on top of a pole cutting government owned devices.

I found out that my neighbors are not so happy about this either. I hope they'll do something about this too.

Thanks for all of input

[robertson468]

This is why they say rent, don't buy in Thailand.

Yes, sir!

I am just renting this house. Unfortunately, I have been here for just three weeks and I haven't recovered yet from the stress of having to move. The speakers weren't there when I first move in. It just magically appeared yesterday.

Hey, wake up man. Stop convincing yourself you are stressed from moving and convince yourself you are REALLY STRESSED with the bellowing speakers and shift your butt to somewhere else pronto. Or tell your landlord that if something is not done about it, you will move in the next two weeks as it is affecting your health, even if it is not.

[Gerald14]

^{Hi guys,}

^{I had this problem some time ago, but tlaking to the Poo Yai Baan helped. He moved the speakers about 50m down the road, left only one on the pole and turned it away from my house, so now I hear nothing in the house, but only a little outside. If this would not have happened I would have bought a very powerful outdoor speaker aetup and played it louder than him with my own Austrian Music. This would have fixed him, but seriously, talking to Thai people helps and they are reasonable (may a few bottles of Mokung would fix the issue?)}

[draftvader]

Which other countries in the world have these speakers throughout the villages, telling the residents what to think?

Vietnam for one. However they are centrally controlled and only go off once a day. Far more predictable and ignorable.

[belg]

try having muslim speakers at 5 am every day...had it and could do nothing else than to move out (was in prawet area) and MIL dropped out there when we arrived from home country

[Screws]

One of the three large tweeters is aimed directly at the bedroom window.

That is not a tweeter, that is the 3D infrared xray motion capture camera.

Lookin' for you on Youtube!

[Screws]

My chum just bought 5 rai and is building a very exclusive dwelling. I said to him, ''did you notice that small building over there with the mast and three large speakers on top''. ?

''Eeeeeeeeer, No''.

''Well at 6 o'clock in the morning a bloke that can't sleep, waffles on it and plays music, all financed by the government, for about an hour''. .

''OH''

6.00 in the morning? Sounds like a lay in to me.

5.30 up here.

10 here.

4.30 am here, during Bhuddist lent, monks chanting for 1/2 an hour or more. Loud! 75 dB in my room!

They feel they have a responsibility to wake the village, I think. & it is a noise like you would never put on your own sound system -

I want to ask them what brand of PA did Bhudda use -

[PoorSucker]

Some years ago somebody posted a great solution whose details I can't remember precisely but no doubt an electrician here will elucidate.

It involved puncturing the wires with a tiny pin and shorting them out. The puncture and pin would be nearly invisible and so difficult to find that the gov't hacks wouldn't be able to discover the source of the problem. They'd assume the speakers were defective or need to replace the entire wire, not perceiving sabotage at all. If they didn't give up the first time around, eventually they would.

A trick I learn in the Finnish army.

[beach]

Some years ago somebody posted a great solution whose details I can't remember precisely but no doubt an electrician here will elucidate.

It involved puncturing the wires with a tiny pin and shorting them out. The puncture and pin would be nearly invisible and so difficult to find that the gov't hacks wouldn't be able to discover the source of the problem. They'd assume the speakers were defective or need to replace the entire wire, not perceiving sabotage at all. If they didn't give up the first time around, eventually they would.

A trick I learn in the Finnish army.

Just go up to the wires/speaker, connect a 230V cable to + and - from the speaker and connect to an outlet in your house for a sec or two. Remove the cable immediately after that action.

If you are a good guy you'd disconnect the speaker cable first to protect all other speakers / amplifier, if you are a smart guy you won't

[loong]

If , a you say, the neighbours admit to not being happy about this, then go as a group to the pooyai bahn and explainn that you do not want this and tell him to either remove the speakers or just limit any broadcasts to important issues once a week. No music!

[SCOTTIEDAM]

They did this in Pattaya many years ago.

Fortunately it did not last for long.

Well; they have done it again, they installed one at the end of my block, and everyday around 4:00 p.m., they play a song, make announcments about free doctors check-ups, or a place where kids can go to learn how to dance, or to say the water will be turned off on a specific day for repairs, etc., etc., then play another song, then go off. usually takes 15 minutes.

The first time I heard it, I thought it was a propaganda thing, like they were gonna use it to manipulate the Thai's into informing the government every time they saw a farang do something wrong, or to report over-stayers, or turn in anybody , even they're family members, for breakin the law ! Ha! Ha! Ha!

[EvilDrSomkid]

They have these infernal devices in our soi in BKK as well. The poo yai baan makes announcements on them. Regularly. Sometimes as early as 7AM. Sometimes days go by with no announcements, sometimes 4 times a day. We have a new poo yai baan for a whiloe and he likes making announcements. The old guy too, but not so much.

Crackle, hallo hallo, prakaat na khap. blablablablablablablablablablablablablablablabla na khap.

OP, I feel your anguish. I hate these things with a vengeance, but luckily never any music.

Oh, and the wife owns the place, no moving.

[ripstanley]

We live in thailand and this is their way of communication within the village or town or city. If you are upset with it you have to communicate this to the appropriate government area or department.

[masterbiker49]

I moved to a new house last year and a few months later on my birthday they installed two speakers on the pole about 30 feet from my bedroom. They would start at about 7am 3 times a week for 15 min or so,music then anouncements. Not that bad as I am usually up by then but still pretty annoying. After a few months the Thai guy next door cut the wires and they never came back to fix it and it has been a few months now. So just cut them and hopefully no one will bother to fix it.

If you have an extendable tree cutting pole you could just "prune the tree" as it were,get my drift.It worked for me & I did not need a ladder or anything so incriminating.

[canopy]

We live in thailand and this is their way of communication within the village or town or city.

This is of course a relatively recent development. In our village as in many others the speakers are for unimportant announcements and music. I still am not sure if the purpose is people like to break the monotony of their lives or if it is to make the speaker feel important or both. When there is an important message our village uses genuine face to face communication rather than those ridiculous, impersonal, crackling monstrosities. The sad thing is every time I see them I can only think how much money is wasted on those things that otherwise could go into actually helping the people of the village in some way.

What I would give to experience a traditional Thailand village where there were no loud speakers, no trucks driving around with loud speakers, people didn't burn plastic in their yard, people weren't buzzing around needlessly on motorcycles as if fossil fuels were a resource that should be wasted and each bike modified to be as loud as possible, when they farmed organically rather than in chemical soup and burning of the fields, and people didn't throw plastic litter everywhere. Granted there are still some positive things about Thai villages, but it is really a sad case study of how technology can be so terribly misused.

Edited July 2, 2012 by canopy

[bendejo]

A hose? Maybe getting enough water inside the horn will mess it up.

If possible to get chlorine bleach in there it might eat away at the workings, the stuff is hell on metals. Squirt gun or something to that effect? If you do this be sure to hose it down with water after the damage is done, otherwise it will be obvious to the guys who repair it. And mind the wind so it doesn't splash on you!

This may turn into a situation where the local (SE Asia) practice of not maintaining or repairing things can turn into a positive.

[Ron19]

I have a confession to make.I am guilty of compiling and giving to him the MP3 that the Phu Yai Baan uses to introduce his announcements.

http://youtu.be/rO-FndxCwdA

Edited July 2, 2012 by Ron19

[GuestHouse]

Borrow a megga-tester.

Strip a few inches of the insulation from the wires - make it look kike a rat has chewed them.

Connect some wires to the stipped and exposed wire. Run this wire to a place where you cannot be observed.

Wait for the music to start up again.

Connect your megga tester to your secret branch wires.

Relax in a chair with a cold drink.

At a moment of your choosing press the big red TEST button.

Remove wires so the fault can't be traced back to you.

Sit back in chair with a cold drink and enjoy the performance outside as Somchai and Numchai try to locate the fault that fried their amplifier.

As a refinement press the TEST button during a lightening storm to add further confusion.

[Ricardo]

Have you considered tapping-into the wires, and introducing the pu-yai-ban to the exotic delights, of morris-dance tunes or a scottish marching-band, at 6am ? Purely in the interests of cultural-diversity and international friendship, natch ?

[Ricardo]

Which other countries in the world have these speakers throughout the villages, telling the residents what to think?

I think we have them in the UK, but they're only used in-the-event of a nuclear-attack, so you don't have to put up with the noise, for very long ?

[cooked]

Have you considered tapping-into the wires, and introducing the pu-yai-ban to the exotic delights, of morris-dance tunes or a scottish marching-band, at 6am ? Purely in the interests of cultural-diversity and international friendship, natch ?

I myself have been dreaming about doing something along these lines for years. I woulld broadcast it at around one hour before ETR (estimated time of rising) of the offender. In the case of our noisy neighbours, one hour after ETB should be about right while I'm at it.

[weegee]

One of the three large tweeters is aimed directly at the bedroom window.

Wait until it's raining at night and turn the speaker up towards the sky, if you can reach it.

[WebBangkok]

Funny,

Our neighbours, well 4 houses down had these MASSIVE pile of speacker, had to be about 3 meters by 3 meters.

They played it at 3am, the guy there is a little crazy, the house is open, you can sort of just walk in because he more like a shack than a house.

Wifey and I went over to there house, the crazy mans excuse was it was someone got married. There was about 6 people there, all in there 40's drinking.

My wife told them to turn it down, the man said no and my wife lost it, she picked up what looked to be the controls of some sort and threw it about 5 meters and some of the speakers turned off because of the plugs coming out.

I was still half a sleep and when we went back home, I was thinking <deleted> lol If I got the music LOUD in the car and she wants the volume lower...... I better just lower it.

[Pseudolus]

Got them outside my bedroom window; I cut 6 inches of the wires out (right at the hub going in) the second night in the house. If yours are like those pictured, there is a high chance they often do not have a paper or cardboard membrane but one made of very thin metal;water won't touch it. So, here are my suggestions on the basis that my entire adult life (from 10 yrs up if I am truthful) my lack of patience and understand means I have destroyed many such annoyances;

1. Water bomb balloons filled with a choice of expanding filler (airtight seal as you fill the balloon) or a high salt water solution (slower process). Keep lobbing at the speakers at every opportunity until they are done for.
   
2. Thermite and a sparkler. My personal favourite but a tad tricky. Shimey up the pole and place the thermite on the business end of the speaker (the bow, not the horn). Retreat to a safe distances. Shoot lit sparkers at it (from a crossbow if the mood takes you) to ignite the Thermite. Job done. Spectacularly.
   
3. Are you a crack shot? Well air riffle is the way forward. Aim for the parts where the wires attach to the unit though and do it whilst they are in operation so you know when you have made the shot. Also more satisfying.
   
4. Catapult however loaded with small ball bearings. Aim at full power at the point where the horn attaches to the box. Rupture that a few times, with a bit of luck they might fall over, or at worse case, less sound makes it out of the horn.
   
5. Squirrel - Over the next 3 months train a squirrel to do anything to tell it to. Then, get it to move the speakers so they all face the other direction and the horn is full of poo.
   
6. Cover the outside of your house with egg boxes and sponge (cut in shark angles) to soundproof you from the din.
   
7. or...and if you have got this far, well done, get the Mrs to ask for someone prepared to do all of the above for you for a few hundred baht
   
8. Finally - do what the landlady did - go to the Municipal office and complain like buggery - worked for her, but you will have to bribe the rat faced swines.
   

Edit - if you know the political leaning of the git making the noise, after destroying the speaker chuck some Red or Yellow paint on it with a pic of Thaksin or some yellow shirt idol. That way they will blame someone else. With a bit of luck, it might spark a riot in your moobahn and you can sneak out and do a bit of looting; after all, your Farang so have no involvement in politics thus they will leave you alone.

Edited July 4, 2012 by Pseudolus