Blog

Occasional posts on subjects including field recording, London history and literature, other websites worth looking at, articles in the press, and news of sound-related events.

12 December 2011

Making engine noises with a jam jar

WHILE READING UP on jet engine noise I came across a reference to a Make Magazine article on building your own pulse jet from a jam jar.

How could you not want to make one? The article itself is only available to subscribers, but fortunately there’s this video on YouTube:

The jam jar jet makes a surprisingly loud noise like the revving of an internal combustion engine. Something to do for Boxing Day, perhaps.

All posts

Old London Cries, 1847 – July 2020

Early street cries from London and Rome – June 2020

Street Cries: Hawkers & Walkers of Early America – June 2020

Sony PCM D100 recorder review – May 2020

Chant – May 2020

Coronavirus – March 2020

Street Cries: London Lickpenny – February 2020

Successor – February 2020

More January street cries – January 2020

Tidal Thames: Procter & Gamble, Thurrock – January 2020

Street Cries: January 2020 addition – January 2020

Sounds of the London Loop – December 2019

LMA talk: thank you – November 2019

Recordings: November 2019 additions – November 2019

November talk – November 2019

Street Cries: October 2019 additions – October 2019

New guestbook – October 2019

Rutting season – October 2019

The clattering bridge – October 2019

London Metropolitan Archives – March 2019

Street cries now being added to Pinterest – January 2019

Social media – January 2019

Recent site upgrades – December 2018

Hiatus – August 2018

BBC sound effects plotted on a map – July 2018

In memory of Richard Beard, wildlife recordist – June 2018

New section on historical street cries – April 2018

Long in the tooth – June 2017

Acoustic baffle – January 2017

MixPre-D clamp – November 2016

A visit to the old nuclear weapons development site at Orford Ness – November 2016

New York Times – August 2016

The EU referendum and the silence of the streets – June 2016

Media chancers – April 2016

New feature: Sounds of the Musical Museum – February 2016

The soundscape of Oxford Street – December 2015

Tim Hunkin – November 2015

The reverberant city – November 2015

New! Old! More historical recordings added – November 2015

Sounds of 1960s Las Vegas – November 2015

Five fundamental stances in recording – October 2015

What will cities sound like when they're filled with electric vehicles? – September 2015

London runs on war and rumour: Chaucer in the House of Fame – August 2015

The White Lady of Camberwell and other London characters – June 2015

The trouble with sound maps – May 2015

Challenging the BBC to broadcast unusual sounds in 1924 – April 2015

The average of the average – March 2015

The sounds of sectarianism – March 2015

Which sex does a computer sound like? – February 2015

Why girls shouldn't run away to London – February 2015

Arthur Machen: the sounds from beyond the veil – February 2015

Vanished City: London's Lost Neighbourhoods by Tom Bolton – January 2015

Sound and Music's Creative Data Club – January 2015

Out of town: Whittlesey Straw Bear festival – January 2015

The Bird Tree – December 2014

Down with noise: first impressions of Sennheiser MKH 8020 mics – December 2014

The Block: making a simple stereo baffle – December 2014

Thanks to everyone at the Marlborough and the Social – December 2014

The London Sound Survey as a full-time concern – August 2014

Thanks to everyone who came to Earshots 4 – June 2014

Edgelands: Staines Moor – June 2014

Guest post from Cities and Memory – May 2014

Darwin among the earthworms – May 2014

Up with the lark: soundCamp in Rotherhithe, May 3–4 – April 2014

Coming this April: Field Studies 2014 – March 2014

Hello and welcome to Mail Online readers – January 2014

Consuming Sounds: a shopping centre odyssey this February with Points of Listening – January 2014

Sensing Cities back on Resonance 104.4 FM from this Friday – January 2014

Sounds in poetry: 'Adlestrop' and 'Death of a Naturalist' – January 2014

Sound and the Law: Sounds you must and must not make – November 2013

Sound and the Law: What are the limits on recording? – October 2013

Permanent present – September 2013

Some changing frequencies of sound-words across 200 years of English fiction – September 2013

Ships' Opera at the Thames Festival – September 2013

London Sound Survey recordings to be archived at the Museum of London – September 2013

Quiet please #2: Peabody estate, Victoria – September 2013

Extra! Recordings of English newspaper sellers – August 2013

Quiet please #1: Lincoln's Inn – August 2013

All systems go – July 2013

London Sound Survey LP progress report – June 2013

What does London really sound like? – May 2013

These Are The Good Times album cover – May 2013

When sounds don't play on Safari – April 2013

Street noise and the taming of Victorian London – April 2013

Here soon: the London Sound Survey vinyl LP – March 2013

Crossing the Thames at Woolwich – March 2013

Sounds of disaster in peacetime London – February 2013

Reverberation and Authority – January 2013

London on Christmas Eve – December 2012

Beware the Cat: auditory overload in the 16th century – November 2012

Jez riley French in Soho – November 2012

Coming up! Second batch of vintage BBC radio sounds – November 2012

The resurgence of religion in London – November 2012

Searching for unearthly sounds – October 2012

Sound, hallucination and the moment of epiphany – September 2012

London voices: outline of a new sound map – September 2012

One-track mind – August 2012

Yeah, yeah, industrial estate – August 2012

Rudyard Kipling and sonic warfare – August 2012

Public talk at In The Dark, Wapping, Thursday 2nd August – July 2012

Field recording and Philip Larkin on poetry – July 2012

The man who heard the flowers scream – July 2012

Motorcycle Wall of Death – July 2012

Casanova in London – June 2012

Third annual report – June 2012

Hello to Wire magazine readers – June 2012

A quick thank-you to Sound Network – May 2012

Mapping London's subterranean rivers – May 2012

Building a field recording system 4: introduction to binaural sound recording – May 2012

Time off in the Scottish Highlands – April 2012

Absence of sound – April 2012

A taxonomy for field recordings – March 2012

Victorian cage-bird fanciers of Brick Lane – March 2012

The slow movement – February 2012

Thoughts on classifying field recordings – February 2012

Building a field recording system 3: recorder accessories – January 2012

Building a field recording system 2: the compact recorder – January 2012

Building a field recording system 1: introduction – January 2012

Where Londoners come from – January 2012

Nice to meet you, London Historians – January 2012

Thanks, Londonist – December 2011

James Greenwood's 'The Wilds of London' from 1874 – December 2011

Our synthetic sound environment – December 2011

Making engine noises with a jam jar – December 2011

Spam attack! – December 2011

Five compact XLR-enabled audio recorders – November 2011

Some recordings from the Waterways sound map – November 2011

Victoria coach station in 1935 and 2011 – November 2011

London sounds from 1930s and 1940s BBC radio – October 2011

Your recordings from Embankment and Dalston – October 2011

When the planes stopped flying – September 2011

Sound and health – September 2011

New recordings in from Sam Appleby and Craig Barrett – September 2011

Making soundmaps with iframes and image maps – September 2011

Sound-mapping London's waterways – August 2011

Looting the Iceland store in Rye Lane, Peckham – August 2011

East London Line recorded by John Bingham Hall – August 2011

London sounds from Richard Sanderson and Sam Appleby – July 2011

New low-noise binaural mics from Sound Professionals – July 2011

Moving towards HTML5 audio for your website's sounds – July 2011

Rustic sounds with the new headworn DPA 2006C mic set-up – July 2011

Wind-powered sound art in Cumbria – July 2011

Drone noise weekend with Jamie Reid and the Organ of Corti – July 2011

Sonic pleasures of the landline telephone – June 2011

Les Passages Couverts – English Style – June 2011

Shopaholic – June 2011

Sounds of the Thames estuary remembered – June 2011

Nice to see you at SoundFjord and Oxford Brookes University – June 2011

The London Sound Survey at SoundFjord, 12th June – June 2011

The Entertainers: music hall revival from the 1960s – June 2011

Two years old today – May 2011

What do tornadoes sound like? – May 2011

DPA's new 2006C Reference Standard mic: first impressions – May 2011

Beddington Farm – May 2011

Seeing sounds: Izotope RX2 as a wave editor – May 2011

Regina Burbach: stories told through sound – May 2011

Today is International Dawn Chorus Day – May 2011

Allhallows Marshes – April 2011

First round is the theme round – April 2011

Sounds of protest from 12 Gates to the City – April 2011

Adrian Stokes: an aesthete in Hyde Park – March 2011

Thames drifter – March 2011

Howling wolf – March 2011

Cuckold's Haven – March 2011

Willesden Junction at dawn – February 2011

Mug-house riots and a short history of hissing – February 2011

Sights and sounds of London street markets – February 2011

Historical maps now online – February 2011

Make the darkness your friend – January 2011

New uses for old London maps – January 2011

Real sounds of Lagos – January 2011

Sound maps from Inukjuak and New York State – January 2011

The All-in-One London Map is now online – January 2011

Across the miles – December 2010

London through a glass – December 2010

Three recordings from Greenwich and its peninsula – December 2010

Two quick recordings from Camden Town – December 2010

What are the earliest sounds you can remember? – December 2010

Lonely Planet and the London Sound Survey – December 2010

Sound and history: new site section preview – December 2010

The Audio Technica BP4025: your reliable stereo workhorse – November 2010

Recordists on film: The Stone Tape and The Shout – November 2010

New site section on the way – November 2010

Recordists on film: Lisbon Story and Gadjo Dilo – November 2010

T?n? koutou katoa, New Zealand sound lovers – November 2010

Paris street music – October 2010

The sound collectors – October 2010

Guest post from Nick Hamilton of Lost Steps – October 2010

Film sound clichés – October 2010

Lost Steps back on Resonance 104.4 FM! – October 2010

Hello and welcome to our Chinese listeners – October 2010

West to Arcadia – September 2010

Thames lightermen and an origin for whistling – September 2010

Adventures in ultrasound: recording with the London Bat Group – September 2010

Coming up: the LSS at Sound:Site and on BBC World Service – September 2010

Chasseur du Son – August 2010

Thomas Burke, a man in love with London – August 2010

Mad about the buoy – August 2010

Entente cordiale: Des Coulam's guest post from Paris – August 2010

A useful fantasy – August 2010

Sounds unreal – July 2010

Jack London among the Cockneys – July 2010

Rebranding exercise – July 2010

Doing anything on World Listening Day? – July 2010

New Thames estuary section now added – July 2010

Two recordings from Canvey Island – June 2010

The walk won't do you good – June 2010

Sounds from the Sonic Tuck Shop: interview with Felicity Ford – June 2010

New binaural mics from Roland – May 2010

The London Nobody Sings – May 2010

Out and about on May Day – May 2010

Nocturnal emitters – May 2010

The sounds and history of Caledonian Road – April 2010

Two south London dawn choruses – April 2010

Volcano makes London plane-free – April 2010

Quiet please – April 2010

Bill Fontana at Somerset House from 15 April – April 2010

The sound grid is done – April 2010

The solar system music box – March 2010

History's history – March 2010

Finch sound art at the Barbican – March 2010

Sounds of the modern age in Orwell's Coming Up for Air – March 2010

George Gissing and the Nether World – March 2010

On the Hoo Peninsula – March 2010

Car wash in three acts – March 2010

At the banger races – March 2010

Sound and sociability – February 2010

Head-worn mics for under £300 – February 2010

From Kew Gardens to Battersea Bridge – February 2010

Rituals of public shaming – February 2010

Notting Hill Carnival 1984 – January 2010

Binaural sounds from Russia – January 2010

Night-walking and the poet of Villiers Street – January 2010

Sound is Art – January 2010

???????????? ? ????? ?????????? ? ???, ??????? ????????? – January 2010

Crowds and crime in Defoe's Moll Flanders – January 2010

Weird Vibrations and the politics of sound – January 2010

Two sunny afternoons in south London – January 2010

Wishing you all a happy 2010 – December 2009

Toothache hotel – December 2009

Modern voices of authority – December 2009

A new website feature – December 2009

Please keep your belongings with you at all times – December 2009

Bleak House and Babbage's library of sound – December 2009

Some field recording tips – December 2009

Out and about – December 2009

London Sound Survey on Lost Steps/Resonance FM – December 2009

VE Day celebrations and a tram's final journey to New Cross – December 2009

Some auditory curiosities – November 2009

Two great sound references from 'History is Made at Night' – November 2009

Golden days of the rag-and-bone men – November 2009

Jive at the Paramount Ballroom, 1947 – November 2009

Doodlebugs – November 2009

Past sounds of Lambeth Walk and London Bridge station – November 2009

Sounds of the Chislehurst underworld – November 2009

Kenneth Williams and the Mayor of Garratt – October 2009

When smashing windows is a sound action – October 2009

Catford night life – October 2009

Gone to budgery – October 2009

Birds and police whistles – September 2009

Weird for sound – September 2009

How Islington sounded in the 1950s – September 2009

Noisy streets of London – September 2009

Doves from above – September 2009

London Sound Survey on Radio 4 – September 2009

New wildlife section – August 2009

The Elephant and the Submarine – August 2009

These are the warning sounds – August 2009

Gypsy buskers on the Underground – August 2009

The train beggar – August 2009

1892: Grisly sounds in a London church – July 2009

From the Crystal Palace to Bluewater – July 2009

The decline of whistling – July 2009

Fairground barkers – July 2009

A few words at the beginning – May 2009

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