Technology > Cos. Offer Powerful Speakers for Katrina

Companies Offer Powerful Equipment That Can Project Sound Over Long Distances for Katrina Zone

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flies over homes surrounded by floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina during search and rescue operations, Friday, Sept. 2, 2005, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, pool)

The gear, developed for use in stadiums, crime scenes and war zones, has been used to generate painful sounds to force people out of buildings. But on the Gulf Coast, the companies expect it to be used to send information.

During a test earlier this week at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California, the equipment projected recordings of Muhammad Ali reading poetry and Frank Sintra singing over a mile.

"All of them were completely audible," said Phillip Hamilton, owner and general counsel at HPV Technologies Inc. "The speaker was a tiny dot. You couldn't tell what it was. You were 5,280 feet away."

The test, however, was conducted along a desert runway at the base. In an urban area, the sound waves could be blocked by tall buildings and other obstructions.

HPV's Magnetic Acoustic Device, however, also can be deployed on a truck or attached to a helicopter, he said. Units displayed Thursday were as much as 10-feet across.

"It's a self-contained unit," he said. "Very mobile and transportable."

Costa Mesa-based HPV has been trying to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency to donate its technology but its calls have not been returned. The devices range in price from $35,000 to $75,000 each.

The units are based on a technology called planar magnetics. Unlike cone-shaped speakers, the HPV speakers vibrate flat panels on the speaker. The combination significantly multiplies the strength of the speaker.

"It does to sound what a laser does to light," Hamilton said.

Another company, American Technology Corp. has donated some of its equipment to a Marine Corps military police unit that's headed to the Gulf Coast, according to a report in the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

A spokeswoman for San Diego-based American Technology did not return phone calls Friday.

2005-09-03