Pittsburgh residents holding their ears. Photo by Margaretkilljoy.

By now, everyone has heard about the G20 summit being held in Pittsburgh, and everyone has probably heard about the expected protests and marches – but did you know that Pittsburgh was also the first place that an LRAD system was used in the United States?

LRAD, otherwise known as “Long Range Acoustic Device” is a device used for crowd-control and long-range communication. The LRAD equipment, mounted atop armored police vehicles, was used to play recorded warning messages that ordered gathered crowds to disperse. Aside from being used as a very loud megaphone, it was also used to emit ear-splitting noise – this 45 pound satellite dish lookalike can deliver up to 155 decibels of sound (up to nearly 2 miles).

According to an article about noise-indiced hearing loss, the NIDCD (National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders) basically states that anything over 85 dB can begin to inflict hearing loss… In addition, “The louder the sound, the shorter the time period before noise-induced hearing loss can occur”.
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