Rochester, let's make some noise
June 1st 2010 Diggerland in Rochester was
the location for the launch of
a new solution which protects
workers' hearing while
allowing them to
communicate.
Despite, increased
legislation and wide
availability of hearing
protection, incidents of
Noise Induced Hearing Loss
(NIHL) are on the rise.
One reason for this may be
that many traditional hearing
protection devices are
designed to block out all
sound so useful signals such
as voices may not be heard
encouraging users to remove
the protection; doing so for
just 5 minutes every hour,
can result in hearing damage.
Arco, the safety company,
used the Kent based
adventure park to launch a
hearing protection system
from Sensear which
incorporates SENS (Speech
Enhancing Noise
Suppression) which isolates
and enhances speech while
suppressing harmful
background noise. The result
is a high quality natural
speech played directly into
the earmuffs or connected via
Bluetooth to mobile phone
and two-way radio.
HSM went along to
Diggerland to try out the new
technology in a range of
high-noise digging scenarios.
While some of the more
challenging tasks may have
left a few contestants blushing
(not HSM of course) the
earmuffs enabled clear, easy
communication while
protecting hearing so at least
their ears weren't ringing too.
Pictured: A blindfolded
Louise Carter from HSM
attempts to pop balloons with
the digger's bucket while
editor Georgina Bisby gives
directions via the Sensear
head set:
www.arco.co.uk/sensear
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