This particular fan has been running each and every night for the past twenty-four years. I am not sure how much longer it will continue to run. It was a bargain at eight dollars and fifty-six cents from the Caldor Store that's now a Home Depot over on Central Avenue in downtown Albany. Funny how this particular fan outlasted the store it was actually purchased in.
Specifically, this particular unit is a model number KH-06CX, 120 Volt/ 60 Hertz/ 25 Watt UL-listed six-inch diameter clip-on fan manufactured by the Kuo Horeng Electric Industrial Company out of Taiwan, the Republic Of China. That it was made in the "Republic" of China makes it something of an eBAY specialty item since all cheap junk nowadays is generated in the P.R.C., the People's Republic of China otherwise known as Communist China. In twenty four years, I have never lubricated this particular fan. I did had a second clip-on which I used at my place of work for about two or three years but after several lube jobs, that particular fan had finally succumbed to terminal bearing seizure and died an ugly death. However, the second fan has not been touched but has had quite a few momentary seizures of its own.
So far. So good. Having suffered these statistics, you might, under incredible brain pain, wonder why I have a fan running each night. At first, I did so because at the time I was living with my Mom who was a vicious three-pack-a-day smoker. This particular fan was variously employed to either draw in fresh air or blow out foul air depending on the need. Now before you say to yourself just what the heck kind of a nutcase this N2FNH guy may be, consider what I have just learned recently concerning a few other people relatively close to this program.
Please consider that our esteemed technical director here at This Week In Amateur Radio, George Bowen W2XBS...both he and his wife Cheryl...enjoy the luxuries of an ocean-sized water bed properly festooned with a large industrial-grade metal 30-inch diameter box fan rumbling nicely at the foot of said bed.
As a sidebar, I myself own a fabulous Patton brand model U2-1487 120 Volt/60 Hertz/ 1.5 Amp UL-listed stainless steel high velocity floor fan which runs in tandem with the clip-on during the summer with even more rumble and fan-blade white noise. But there's more.
Cheryl's sister Nicole has been visiting with the Bowens for the past few weeks and she has her own six-inch diameter table fan by the bedside spinning happily away with its own little rumble and fan-blade white noise. Actually, she's on her second fan, because the one she brought with her ran out of spin. But there's more. George and Cheryl's kids go to bed each night with a fan running on the bedroom dresser. But there's more.
In discussing Bed Time Fan Syndrome with the Bowens, it came to light that Cheryl's Mom also retired each night under the all-encompassing low rumble and fan-blade white noise. It would appear that many people live otherwise normal lives but secretly sleep with Bed Time Fan Syndrome. I take BTFS one step farther. I usually hit the sack around 1AM local and catch a few minutes of Coast-To-Coast-Am with George Noory and Art Bell on the AM radio and then at some point, I'll reach over an punch up a blank memory on the Sony 2010 tuned to 100KHz and doze off accordingly. Thus a dual-density white noise curtain lodged between my ears and the overnight universe doing a damn good job of filtering out...what?
Nighttime anxieties? I currently live in a neighborhood where police and ambulance sirens are commonplace, where young street punks with their bow-wow wubba-wubba woofers ooze on by...you can't hear the music and you can't hear the beat but you can certainly copy the mechanically traumatic vibrations from their little rolling rice boxes. But this is nothing.
When I was married, I lived in in a house where my backyard was the New York State Thruway, precisely at mile marker 144.4 northbound. Twenty-four hours a day of Peterbilts, Mac Trucks, Greyhound Buses and miscellaneous bad mufflers. Where my little clip-on came in handy the best was in the dreadfully deadly, nighttime pure country silence living in a little lakeside cottage in the low mountains of Sand lake and perhaps here is part of the key.
If it's too quiet. Who can sleep? If it's too quiet. You may start hearing your own heart beating. If it's too quiet. Your own breathing becomes obnoxious. As does all of your own internal bowel noises, gurgling gases, and rumbling tummies. But once you adapt. There could be other things.
Nighttime anxieties? In discussing Bed Time Fan Syndrome with the Bowens, some rather disturbing theories began to surface. If you have ever just dosed off, not quite asleep, not quite awake, and heard at some imprecise moment, a voice whisper in your ear. A word that sounds like: "Trapped!"
My own Mom experienced this many years ago and freaked out enough to fall prey to a similar syndrome, BTRS or Bed Time Radio Syndrome where AM talk radio plays continuously and where the real voices will hopefully mask out the unexpected and unwanted sounds of the "Pillow People". "Pillow People" is a phrase I first heard from George's sister-in-law Nicole. I did a search on "Pillow People" on the Internet but found that there was nothing that related in this way but the nationally syndicated late night talk show hosts George Noory and Art Bell frequently discuss "Shadow People" and "Night Spirits" who may come to visit you at your bedside. From where? Another dimension? A parallel universe? The afterlife? That other place?
At the risk of being declared slightly schizoid, I do believe I can lay claim to hearing one or two instances of the "Pillow People". It would seem that someone or something may be attempting to communicate by way of some unconventional peer-to-peer medium or perhaps through some electromagnetic manifestation currently not type-accepted nor licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. So, in other words, what we are really talking about here is: A firewall. A filter. A choke. A means to keep unexpected and unwanted probes or unsolicited unknown communications from reaching your otherwise unprotected psyche when it is at its most vulnerable.
This would appear to be a strictly analog thing but maybe its not. But somehow, the purely analog, purely functional but not so purely white noise of a rumbling fan or a blank crackly AM or FM radio channel appears be a perfect solution with its roots firmly entrenched in rich 1950's tradition. How many times did your Dear Old Dad doze off in the Lazy Boy in front of the Crosby, the Zenith, the Motorola, the Sylvania or the RCA securely firewalled from alien intrusion through the marvelous blocking effects of a local TV channel that has signed off for the night with nothing left but a shimmering white screen and a shushing white hiss.
I believe this is where Bed Time Fan Syndrome may have first arisen from the noise floor because cable television, with its hundreds of channels...with its hundreds of twenty-four hour a day channels, is a visual medium with many gaps of audio silence where much is said with a wink or a nod or a graphic. Too many chances for the whispers to get though. For the same reason, those junk box white noise generators from the Sharper Image or the Spencer Gifts. Here, the noise is too thin. Its cheap sounding and disturbing and not an effective firewall at all. Too many chances for the whispers to get through.
Fans may be harder to find at the Wal-Mart during the winter so a quick jog over to the Odd Job or Big Lots may turn up an inexpensive but highly efficient table or clip-on job to hold you over till warmer weather. Larger fans such the Patton stainless steel, because of their physical size may generate an audible hum in addition to the blowing white noise. This may not be a disadvantage though since you can train your subconscious ear to regard the hum as a pilot tone which should put you out like a light in a matter a seconds and hold you there until a much louder alarm clock goes off in the morning.
But if a rumbling and spinning fan is the firewall. Then a Ouija Board is the network router. However this, my friend, is a whole 'nother story. And a can of worms best left unopened. At least for the moment. But more on this device. Maybe at some future date. This is Bill Baran N2FNH for This Week In Amateur Radio. Oh. And before I sign off, this would be a good time to switch on the Patton stainless steel UL-listed...(click!) Pleasant dreams! - 30 -
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