One of the reasons I moved from my old home was the increase in the level of general background noise. I’d lived there for around 20 years, 15 of them very happily but as always, the needs of modern life always take over and you just have to accept it…or not…

 

I was always used to the feint rumble of traffic from the motorway that skirts around the east side of the town and the 'clickity-clak' of the trains as they head off through the fields towards the North East.

 

But, a few years ago, a new noise generator appeared in the form of an ‘A’ road bypass which follows a path through the fields at the back of my old home and effectively squeezed me into the middle of a triangle of noise pollution between the railway, the motorway and the new bypass. The noise level of cars roaring past at 5am every weekday morning was enough to wake me from my slumber and prevent any sleep until 1am when the noise died down… just a little… Which edge of the ‘noise triangle’ I found most annoying on a day-to-day basis depended entirely on which way the wind was blowing…literally!

 

Couple that with the added bonus of the town also being located under the flight path of two main London serving airports (both Luton and Stansted) with aeroplanes passing overhead every couple of minutes until just after midnight, during the summer months the general background noise level in the town could be deafening! To Sleep? Perchance to do any dreaming whatsoever! 

 

I gave it my best shot, mainly to appease those who thought I was being overly noise sensitive, but eventually I had enough of the constant whine of the aircraft engines, the roar of the cars and the 'clickety-clak, clickety-clak' of the trains and found some peace and quiet in a small village home around 10 miles or so away.

 

The village is surrounded by fields where local farmers grow a variety of crops which are sold in a number of local farm shops as well as the more commercial crops such as wheat, corn and barley. The only noise you’ll hear here is the occasional creak of a cabbage growing! 


On a summer’s evening it’s always a treat to go for a walk or an MTB ride across to the fields of tasty looking produce, past the bramble hedgerows full of bees and butterflies pollinating this year’s crop of blackberries and over to the river that passes close by. This is just what I was doing one recent evening… when, as usual in the most random of places… I found something to pique my Geekette interest…!

 

Walking through the tree lined track at the side of the fields and being quite sensitive to unusual noises now, I could hear a rhythmic metallic sounding ‘clunk….clunk… clunk…’ coming from up ahead at which point I also noticed a rather enormous pipe running close along the edge of the hedgerow about the diameter of a small tea plate. Putting your hand on it you could feel the fast flow of water so I deduced that it must be something to do with irrigation of the fields. Coming out into the open fields now and I could clearly see what was making the noise. A rather large yellow contraption consisting of a very large reel of pipe on some kind of rotary pulley system. Looking over to the far side of the field and you could also see a water sprinkler array spanning across it and happily watering the crop of potatoes. Me being me, just had to get a closer look and take a short video of the marvellous machine in action: 

 



Looking closely at it you can see that the ‘clunk clunk’ noise comes from a ratchet system that is slowly winding the pipe back in, therefore pulling the sprinkler array back across the field and watering the entire crop. Not sure how long it would take to work its way back but I’d say it would be a couple of hours or so at least! There’s also a solar panel attached to the side so I’m guessing it’s used to generate the electricity needed to power the winder mechanism? Or maybe it’s for the comms side of things i.e. GPS navigation and systems comms (flow per minute etc) so the farmer can keep an eye on his watering system from his armchair?  I’m really intrigued so if any readers are familiar with how these machines work I’d love to know more!

 

Oh and also for your viewing pleasure, here’s another short video in which I was almost soaked by the spray from the sprinkler watering an adjacent field while I was too busy filming it and not looking at where it was about to spray next... Was very impressed with its accuracy though as I was standing on the edge of the track next to one of the potato plants which got a full watering but it missed me!  Now that has surely got to be programmed into some navigation software somewhere…?

 



 

If like me, you’re a fan of taking photos and videos of random engineering related stuff, don’t forget to tag them with 'engineerpics' when you upload them to our online community!  I’m collating them here and will be giving out some prizes for my favourites at the end of the Summer! Read this blog post to find out more and get snapping! 

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