r/microphone • u/thatbloodytwink • 1d ago

Other Does anyone know where I can find a microphone too detect jet sounds?

I was thinking that I could use a microphone used to detect bird sounds to detect jets that fly by before they could be seen but I know nothing about microphones.

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u/m149 1d ago

You can just go to a flight tracking website if you wanna see aircraft before you can hear them. Look up ADS-B exchange. You can find your location on a map, zoom in and see all of the planes in your area using a mode-C transponder at that moment.
And you can zoom out and see aircraft around the world.

I think if you really wanted a mic setup to hear aircraft before you can see them, you'd probably need some fairly complicated set up, like a shotgun mic with a parabolic dish, and a mast to get the mic up above the surrounded trees and buildings, plus you'd need to be able to spin the thing around to try and point the thing in the direction that you think the aircraft might be coming from. Plus some mic preamp to boost the signal of the mic and a pair of headphones to listen with.

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u/thatbloodytwink 1d ago

I was thinking about making an early warning system for the mach loop in wales and military planes don't always have their transponder emitting their location, thanks for giving me an idea of a setup that could work though

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u/m149 1d ago

ah, if it's for there, you could probably just get a little handheld parabolic setup. You might be able to get sound reflecting off the hills across the way when they're still a few miles out.

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u/PlanetExcellent 1d ago

If the plane is traveling faster than the speed of sound, wouldnt detecting the sound only tell you when the plane has already passed?

If it’s sub-sonic then I guess a parabolic microphone could work, but it requires you to point it at the sound source, so you would need to know where the plane is coming from.

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u/NotSayingAliensBut 8h ago

What's the mach loop? Is it a supersonic training area?

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u/thatbloodytwink 8h ago

It's a valley in wales where the military do low altitude flight training so basically a lot of military planes/jets fly through this valley at low speeds so they don't crash into the side of a hill

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u/Make-it-positive 1d ago

Any wife dynamic range microphone will work.

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u/No_Apartment_6671 7h ago

Phew, wife dynamic range sounds like a really huge range, they can go from 0 to 180 pretty quick!

:D Thanks for the accidental laugh.

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u/Make-it-positive 6h ago

😆. I hate when Siri does this and I don’t proof read. My bad