Talk:The Mosquito

Nuisance
I thought I had once added material about statutory nuisance laws, but I can't find it and can't find it's deletion in the history. I plan to put one in over the next few days, focusing on the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and possibly also addressing Public Nuisance. If anyone has an objection to that or recalls a settled decision that certain statements shouldn't be on the page please comment here.Dolive21 (talk) 11:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Example
Today I recorded the pitch of, I believe, such device. It was on the outside of a supermarket (in Washington DC). I don´t know if this is relevant, but I can also come back and make a picture of the device. It´s a green box the size of two packets of cigarettes or so. The spectrogram is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasonurb/7811118368/

Brunosan (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that's a great idea. Your image shows a signal that cycles between 15kHz and 19kHz, taking about 3.3 seconds to complete each ramp up – ramp down cycle. It's perfect. Binksternet (talk) 00:07, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Effect on Other Animals?
I noticed in the article that there is no mention of the device's effect on non-human animals. This is something I was genuinely curious about when reading the article: presumably animals such as dogs find the device's sound at least as unpleasant as the young people it is used to disperse. Is anyone aware of any research done into this, or have any anecdotal evidence of relevance?

My family considered buying a Mosquito a few years back to deter loiterers behind their house, and had a dog at the time, so this is something I've always wondered about.Chebghobbi (talk) 12:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm that the sample on this page bothered a dog. ~DG (talk) 22:10, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect audio file, possibly due to bad lossy compression
I think most people familiar with what a sine wave sounds like or with a decent sense of pitch can tell there is something wrong with the audio file which claims to be a 17.4 kHz tone uploaded in February 2015.

Loading the file in Audacity or similar software and running a frequency analysis shows that there is a major 17.4 kHz component to it, but there is also a spike of about -81.9 dB near 2998 Hz, and -86.6 dB near 8958 Hz (with the exact numbers changing a bit depending on window type and sample size for the analysis)

I'm a 30 year old man and when listening to a pure 17.4 kHz tone that hasn't been compressed with MP3, I hear almost nothing in either ear, but can still tell the sound is present. This includes uncompressed wave files, lossless flac files, and lossy vorbis files. But I can hear the audio file on this web page quite loudly in both ears (which was converted to 44.1 kHz vorbis/ogg from a 48 kHz mp3 found on theoatmeal.com). Also, in Audacity, I can create a new audio file that contains only a -81.9 dB sine wave at 2998 Hz and a -86.6 dB sine wave at 8958 Hz, and it sounds very similar to the sound on this webpage, except for what sounds to me like static. I can also use Audacity to confirm this isn't just an issue related to amplitude/volume settings.

Unfortunately, I think anything I can do would qualify as independent research and therefore not be appropriate as a reason to change the contents of the article. And there are reasons to suspect I may be wrong: A version of this sound appears in several places that might be considered citable: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5434687, and http://theoatmeal.com/quizzes/sound/. It's been republished in many youtube videos and lots of other places. It is linked to from reddit.com quite often and there seems to be a strong consensus among the commenters that this is an accurate representation of a 17.4 kHz tone, with comments to the contrary not being well received. (However, there are many commenters who claim to be much older and able to hear the audio file very clearly, which may indicate there is a problem with the audio file, or with the claims about older people not being able to hear it.) Based on all of that, I'm not comfortable enough with my analysis to change anything here and hope that someone more familiar with audio engineering or with the rules of Wikipedia can decide what should be done.

50.158.91.149 (talk) 05:19, 21 September 2015 (UTC)


 * The files on this page might be helpful for comparison. They do not sound like the .ogg file in the article. http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2011/06/mosquito-ringtones/ 50.158.91.149 (talk) 05:44, 21 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I have uploaded a new audio file with the correct frequency. After checking with a software audio analyzer, it's obvious that the previous file was wrong. Sanmiittai (talk) 03:47, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on The Mosquito. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070928044813/http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news-and-events/mosquito-device.shtml to http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/news-and-events/mosquito-device.shtml

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 07:34, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Audio file
I don't object to including the 17 kHz sound sample, but the claim that it can only be heard by those under 25 was not supported by the cited ref. See Talk:Ageing for the discussion of the reference's contents. It seems to be reliable source, but it very definitely does not make the claim concerning 25-year-olds and the 17 kHz sound. An IP recently restored it, saying that I had mistakenly removed it, when I was clear in my edit summary. After I removed it again another IP restored it, again claiming that I was mistaken and stating this time that the source said "17 kHz sound (only under 25's can hear)". The source does say that, but the IP had rather sneakily changed the source from the original RS to the non-WP:RS manufacturer's webpage. It's rather interesting that this page has nothing to do with the stated intent of the page (the customization options) while the most recent archived version of the page (February of this year) did cover customization but did not support the contested claim.

So, a reliable source that does not support the claim, replaced by a non-reliable source that does (suddenly) support the claim. Neither approach is sufficient to include this claim, and I'm suspicious that the IPs are have some connection to the company. Meters (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


 * One of these things is actually fairly close to my home. I can hear both frequencies clearly, and I'm over 60. While this is technically a "research finding," I'd point out the idea that only those under 25 can hear it is ludicrous.

184.217.133.84 (talk) 02:16, 10 May 2019 (UTC)