Up close, the sheer size of a moving mechanical device such as this is almost enough to make one light headed. From a distance -which is how I have been able to view them until now- the turbines have a very "futures-past" kind of feel; almost like they would be better suited in the film Metropolis. Below is a photo of the three turbines which are situated on our neighboring island Vinalhaven:
My true purpose for attending this celebration was to take some field recordings of the turbines and do some basic decibel and spectral analysis. The three diagrams below are from this test:
Fig. 1 represents the flat (no input) spectral form
Fig. 2 shows the complete audible spectrum of one of the turbines from about 50 feet in front
Fig. 3 is a zoomed in visual of where I believed the largest jump in magnitude occurred in the lower range between 100 - 200 hertz
There had been some speculation on the magnitude these turbines were producing from some nearby locals. Upon arriving at the site, I thought to myself "these things are quite! I can't hear anything." After about an hour or so of consistent exposure to the constant audible sound produced, my hearing became a bit exhausted. Of the 45 minutes of audio I recorded below is a link to a short snippet of what I heard.
Fox Islands Wind Turbines
A few things to note: This is RAW AUDIO. RAW AUDIO is unedited and contains everything that was recorded at the site by me. You may hear a few footsteps or other movement of me attempting to obtain different perspectives from different angles and heights. Also, to preserve the quality, the file was kept in its original file format of .wav. This means that the file will be a lot larger (around 29mb) than your average .mp3.
Take note about 2/3 through the recording how the frequency of the turning declines with the changing wind.
Please visit the Fox Islands Wind Project website.
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