Update on hearing aids....

[Big Muddy]

A couple of ya'll have asked for an update about how well I liked the new hearing aids, or not....well, it's been a few days, and all I can say is awesome....I can, now, hear the "clicking" of my truck's turn-signals....and, the "ticking" of our big ole mantle clock, over the fireplace....and, I have turned down the volume on the tv 10 notches....and, the background noise of the crowd in a restaurant is not even noticeable....and, I can hear and understand my wife's low voice, even when her head is turned away from me.

But, the most pleasant surprise is NO ear-ringing(tinnitus)!!!....the hearing aids have a feature that filters out the tinnitus noises....for me, that in itself, is worth it all!!!

And, the size is what amazes me....to have all that technology inside such a small device is amazing....and, all the functions and settings are linked directly to my iphone....it will even locate a lost hearing aid, thru the GPS of my iphone.

Here's what they look like:

Compared to a .22 cartridge.

4444


Can you see it???....I didn't think so. ;)

4445

[Thumper]

That's amazingly small! How the heck do you change the batteries? I have a buddy who just got hearing aids last year and it seems he's CONSTANTLY changing batteries. I'll need them some day. I lost some of my hearing as a kid in the military ... they discovered it during my exit physical. It's totally understandable as I had Morse Code blasting in both ears for close to 4 years! I have an annual hearing test and the VA said they'll give me hearing aids anytime I decide I want them ... but I'll wait. It's just not a real problem for me .... YET.

[LJ3]

Pretty cool Eddie! I'm well on my way down that road. Too many nights spent in a small garage with amps and huge PA systems and cranked up music in general.

[Big Muddy]

Thump, the doc said the main problem with losing battery power is people not turning them off, before going to bed....under normal conditions, they last about a week....battery cost is about $50 bucks per year....batteries are quite easy to change with your fingers, but for folks like me, with big hands, there's a little magnetic tool included....takes a nanosecond to change them.

BTW, I asked him something that he hadn't even thought about....the app can be downloaded to my wife's iphone, too....if I should have an accident or get stranded, etc., she can find my location thru her iphone GPS....he really liked that idea, and is going to suggest that to his patients who are outdoor folks....however, I'm sure there are some guys who don't want their spouses to know where they are. ;)

[HideHunter]

I'm there, too. Certain tones are just *gone*. (I can still hear a turkey gobble farther than my son or SIL ;) ) Pretty much everything you can now hear - I can't. I actually became pretty good about hearing protection when I was about 30. Unfortunately, too much gunfire, heavy equipment and shots to the head before then.. Someone said something about crickets last summer. I said, "I thought they went extinct. I haven't heard one in 25 years." ;) I have the tinni-crap bad too. But, I'm a hard-headed bastard like Thump.. I'll get by. ;)

[Big Muddy]

Hide, I'm headed to Bama in about two weeks for four days of turkey hunting....I'm really looking forward to being able to hear those bad boys gobbling, again....until now, they almost had to be on top of me.

[Big Muddy]

Hey, Chick Man, do ya reckon I can write-off these hearing aids, as a legitimate farm expense???....they WILL help me perform my work better. ;)

[Buckrub]

Depends on if your CPA is an Ole Miss or MSU fan!!

I talked to my buddy with them yesterday, and told him about this conversation........and that how I couldn't tell much difference and still had to yell at him......... and he said I was nuts, that the difference was amazing, that without them, he was almost totally deaf. So I am sure that they make a difference. I guess for that price, I'd expect the same difference glasses make..........back to perfection while wearing them.......although I guess some folks can't even get that with glasses.

I know the first time my other buddy got them, and we were in the boat (and he hadn't told me he got them, and I hadn't noticed), he said "Why are the birds so angry today?"......... :)

Good luck with the thunder chickens.

[Thumper]

Yep Hidey-Ho, same with me ... I have lost certain frequencies ... sometimes I can hear a pin drop ... but other things I can barely hear, it all depends on the frequency. Right now, I can't remember what I can hear and what I can't. That's another thing that goes away with your hearing ... your memory! ;)

[Buckrub]

I get made fun of at deer camp. I don't want to sound like bragging, I hate that........but, I cannot sleep if a ticking clock is anywhere in the house. I've had to get up and take batteries out of some of them just to sleep. Our bathroom, off of bedroom, has one and wife knows to shut the door when she comes to bed or it'll keep me awake. One guy used to have one of those watches that beeped every hour, and I had to get truly mad at him before he'd stick it in a box or something, because he didn't believe I could hear it and that it'd wake me up. But it did, and still does.

I always hunt with my ears deer hunting. The only deer I killed this year was slipping through a cutover behind me, and I was about asleep, and I heard him walking at about 150 yards and had to work my body around to my left to shoot him. He hadn't seen me, but was just slipping quietly through a 2 year old cutover (no dry leaves). When I had a stand on a gravel road, I could hear them step onto the gravel at 330 yards (one of their paths they used). I can't stand the TV turned way up, it blows my ears out.

However, I can't understand what I hear sometimes.........wife's voice is very hard to understand. If 3 people are talking, it's very hard to concentrate on one. So I do have hearing loss.

Eyes? Whole nuther' ball game. I can't see squat. The world is a blur.

I'd trade with any of you deaf guys in a heartbeat.

[Thumper]

Similar here Bucky. My hearing is almost beyond belief at some frequencies (I also have EXCELLENT hearing in the woods) and many times I can hear stuff young ears can't hear ... but once a sound hits a certain frequency, I have a heck of a time. I keep the tv turned up much louder than Lynn cares for ... so I suppose my hearing loss falls into that range (whatever that is).

[Big Muddy]

I think the doc said the 2,000 K frequency range (whatever that means???) was the most difficult for us guys to hear....that range includes most women voices.

[jb]

BM, those are the same ones I got earlier this year, I'm hearing stuff I didn't even know existed.
Mine came with a Bluetooth adapter, one part plugs into the TV, the other is a receiver that goes in your pocket or hangs around your neck.
It puts the sound of the TV into your hearing aids almost like a set of head phones. TV sound can be turned off.
They also pick up the sound off your phone and makes the voice on the phone go into both ears. Boy, does that make it easier to hear the person on the other end.
Batteries last about a week, I turn them off at night.
I've gotten so use to wearing them that I find myself going to bed with them still in, only the rustling of the sheets reminds me to take them out.
10,000 times better than the ones I tried to use 11 years ago.

[Big Skyz]

I can only imagine what losing my hearing would do to my coyote hunting. I'm glad to see this kind of technology just in case. I really rely on my hearing to hear the coyotes howl, bark, or woof at me. Sometimes I actually hear them coming through the grass or brush. I have a good friend that doesn't hear very well. However he can hear coyotes howl like nobody I've ever seen. I have pretty darn good hearing, but sometimes he will hear coyotes long before I do. Not sure how that works???

[LJ3]

OUR STOP STORY TONIGHT!!!!

[BarryBobPosthole]

Mine is frequency selective I think. I was the best radio guy in our little tech control so I ended up being the HF guy and when we went to AWACS, those signals came in over HF too. For the unwashed, listening to HF in a headset for 12 hours is like sticking your head in a trashcan with three guys beating it with baseball bats. Maybe I exaggerate. It might be a little worse than that. That screwed up my high frequency hearing at a young age. Hell, when I was a kid I could hear the horizontal oscillator in our TV. Now high pitched stuff gets lost in the background. Like female voices. Hmmmmm...I'm seeing a pattern here....

BKB

[LJ3]

Innersting... Out of my shift in Tech Control probably 1/4 of us could not hear SF on a phone trunk. I think that was at 2600Mhz? We had a tone generator that could knock their phone call down and they never knew why it kept happening.

[Big Muddy]

JB, they really are the cat's nutz for me, too....doc said that these just came out March 1st....that Bluetooth and other technology that you mention is already built-in into these....I've not tried it all, yet, but prolly get around to it....for right now, he just wants me to get accustomed to wearing them....actually, I'm already accustomed to them, but he wants to fine tune everything in 2 weeks.

I told a buddy, this morning, that I think I can actually hear my nuts, rubbing together, when I'm walking....he said, yeah, rust DOES make sort of a crunching sound....wise-azz!!! ;)

[BarryBobPosthole]

Innersting... Out of my shift in Tech Control probably 1/4 of us could not hear SF on a phone trunk. I think that was at 2600Mhz? We had a tone generator that could knock their phone call down and they never knew why it kept happening.

Back in the analog days, MCI only had 12 cities on its network when I started with them. If a person could whistle 2.6khz and if that person knew a telephone number in an on net city, why that person could call that number and then idle the terminating telco circuit up by whistling in the phone and then that person could call anywhere in the world for nuthin.

I'm just sayin' that shit can be done without a tone generator. I used to could do an analogue wink, for wink start circuits too. Night shifts were never boring at MCI in those days.

BKB

[Big Muddy]

I bet ole Bernie Ebbers would love to whistle....prolly be another tune, however. ;)

[Thumper]

Barry-Bob, about a year ago I bought a little grab bag of loose crap at an estate sale. Little Cracker Jacks toys, that sort of thing. One thing in the box was a little plastic Cap'n Crunch whistle that used to come as a free prize in a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal. I researched it not expecting much, but those things are real collector's items and I think I sold it for something like $65.00!! I posted it here at the time, but it's been a while.

It seems Cap'n Crunch came out with 'em in 1971 and people soon found out it was the exact same frequency (2,600 Hz) as the analogue signalling tones of the day and people were using them for "phone phreaking" ... just blow that whistle into the phone and make a free call anywhere in the world!

I'm always looking for those things in some kid's old toy box or whatever, but that's the only one I've ever found. They've dropped in price a bit, but they're still bringing $35-$65 on eBay!

http://andrewwheen.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/crunch-bosun1.jpg

[BarryBobPosthole]

I'm surprised Bernie hasn't gotten any kind of a repreive. I've met him several times and I can confirm he is a bona fide butthole.
He used to fill the water cooler bottles from a garden hose at the home office way back when. Got his start with as a PE coach in high school and then bought some cheap hotels. He made a lot of people rich along the way too!
BKB

[Buckrub]

Went to VMX in Dallas.........back when they were only game in town.

Women's voices, many of them, would reproduce the same Hz as the digit "5" on the metropolitan DTMF keypad. Which was VMX's code for 'erase', I think..................

[Buckrub]

A couple of ya'll have asked for an update about how well I liked the new hearing aids, or not....well, it's been a few days, and all I can say is awesome....I can, now, hear the "clicking" of my truck's turn-signals....and, the "ticking" of our big ole mantle clock, over the fireplace....and, I have turned down the volume on the tv 10 notches....and, the background noise of the crowd in a restaurant is not even noticeable....and, I can hear and understand my wife's low voice, even when her head is turned away from me.

But, the most pleasant surprise is NO ear-ringing(tinnitus)!!!....the hearing aids have a feature that filters out the tinnitus noises....for me, that in itself, is worth it all!!!

And, the size is what amazes me....to have all that technology inside such a small device is amazing....and, all the functions and settings are linked directly to my iphone....it will even locate a lost hearing aid, thru the GPS of my iphone.

Here's what they look like:

Compared to a .22 cartridge.

4444


Can you see it???....I didn't think so. ;)

4445

Don't get those mixed up!

[Big Muddy]

Ha....not hardly. ;)

[LJ3]

One is for hearing, the other is a suppository.

[DeputyDog]

I've learned that in a pinch, 9mm or .40 cal brass makes decent earplugs at the firing range.

[Big Muddy]

Cigarette filters work very well, too. ;)

[HideHunter]

Cigarette filters work very well, too. ;)

I used them a bunch shooting trap 30 years ago. The used ones make your ears stink. ;)

[Big Muddy]

True dat.....but, no earwigs. ;)