High Tech or Low Tech

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people. - Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860

[Philip Osborne]

In the Paranormal Investigation field nowdays, we have alot of equipment that was not available to us 10 - 20 years ago.  Out of all of this new equipment, what do we buy, what is good equipment, what is equipment that does not work as well?  What about the equipment that we used to use before the gadget boom.  Is the old equipment still workable, or is it more or less accurate than the electronics?

EMF meters are huge since the gadget boom.  I have 8 of them.  All different brands, and each a little different in there own ways.  Out of those 8, how many do I use regularly? One!  I used to have more of them (new model, I had to check it out), but I usually give them to new group members who do not have any equipment, and I go over the strengths and weaknesses I found in the equipment.  When it comes to older equipment, I still use my cheap hand compass that I've had for many years.  Alot of times I prefer the old compass to the EMF meter, when I am investigating outside.  Both pieces of equipment can compliment each other.

There are also the low tech's that we used to use, and I still use some of them regularly.  The cheap hand held compass.  The Pendulum, which I use occasionally, but it is hard to be mobile while using it.  Then there is Dowsing Rods, which I still see people use regularly

EVP - An EVP I picked up using my recorder on my cell phone is what got me going into Paranormal Research.  The old cassette recorders were good for their time, but, I am with the digital recorders 1000%, and in my view you can never have to many of these. My wife's opinion differs with this though.

Thermometer - Nothing like waiting for 10 minutes for the old mercury thermometers to read the room temperature.  Non-contact IR thermometer - a very good thing.  Ambient room temperature readings on a Mel meter - also a very good thing++.

Cameras - An old 35mm SLR camera still works extremely well.  It can be time consuming, and it is getting hard to find the higher speed films for it.  Digital cameras are good, but they have there limits also.  Cameras equipped with night vision, are good, but they are limited by the amount of IR light you can get into a room or area.  Hand held cam corders are very good.  I have a Sony HDD cam corder, and it has more features and helpful functions than a Digital 10MP (expensive) SLR camera that I bought my wife last year.

But the question is "Low Tech or High Tech."  The CPI course also touches on this.  I feel the proper answer is that some of the old low tech equipment is still very useful in our investigations, and the high tech equipment is good also.  It just comes down to personal preference, though the low tech end is easier on the budget. Alot of the newer electronics can be down loaded to a computer for data storage.

Just some casual thoughts.  I would like to know what others think about this topic.

Phil

[Ingrid Irwin]

I agree about digital recorders, I appreciate the the clarity of digital especially when one has hours of listening to face !! Good quality digital recorders have the advantage that you hear environmental noises very easily thus don't mistake them for possible captures.

In saying that though, I am going to be running some trials in 2010 on cassette & various reel to reels I have acquired in the last few months, as I would like to make an comparison between the various recording mediums. May just turn out to be an interesting & fun experiment more so than anything substantial, but you can never know until you try !!

[Barry Brudnak]

Ingrid,

I agree with you! Some of these little things we may do may not produce very much, but that fact is - we are trying! I know for one I want to step outside of the box in 2010. I want to open myself up to things, ideas, experiments that I have not. We really have nothing to lose and only education to gain.

[Brian Parsons]

I still have great luck with the variety of magnetic recording devices I have (shoebox recorder, microcassette recorder), but the only problem is getting this information to be viewed as "credible". Digital recorders seem to have little argument since there is no "bleeding" that can occur and that the technology is new and exciting even though I can manipulate digital a million times more than I can a cassette tape.

This is part of the perception of our field (especially the new crop of investigators). I was very upset when I heard about Audacity, a free audio manipulation program available for free! I paid $300 for my Cool Edit Pro and it was rare to hear fake audio ten or more years ago, now it's everywhere. When photo manipulation and video creation software became standard with Windows based computers it ushered in the generation of fake pictures (yes, this has always been a problem since cameras were invented, but not widespread) and fake videos. Technology is great, but with every step forward we leave an avenue for exploitation and manipulation by those who choose to take that path. This has lead to our field continuing to not be taken seriously by real science even though the technology has increased.

Then again, are we really using the right technology? A non-contact thermometer can not determine the temperature of an air pocket, it has to have a solid object to bounce off of. EMF detectors were used by Parapyschologists in the late 1970s/early 1980s to look for logical explanations, not ghosts, and somewhere along the line this reality was lost by armchair theorem and everyone believes that a spike in a reading means a ghost is present even though we have no real validation in the theory. We have seen how some technology can create false positive EVPs. Are we really better off with new technology? Are we using the right technology? Are we doing what others have done just because there have been some "results"?

[Ingrid Irwin]

I agree, with technology comes its own set of problems without a doubt !! When EVP recording was done on cassette & reel to reel one could only reverse, slow or speed it up, technology introduced ways to manipulate, filter and distort the audio, so many software programs allow one to 'create' EVP's very easily. What a few of us have coined  "Electronic Noise Phenomena"

I know researchers that are still using good quality analog cassette recorders and swear by them, they are not easily manipulated but due to their inferior frequency response it is actually easy to hear a noise as a voice due to the low quality of these recorders. So false positives are still a concern. With high quality digital like Olympus DS40, Zoom H2 or similar that have extraordinary sound clarity then at least you elininate this a large part of this problem.  

I feel the biggest problem is the exploitation and manipulation, as you mentioned Brian, this is where WE have to be on the ball moreso and be able to distinguish anything that is tampered, whether audio or photgraphic evidence.

I think we are using the best we have available to us but where I feel our downfall comes in, especially in EVP, is that we are trying to measure an event acoustically when it is NOT acoustic by nature? EVPs have been recorded in faraday cages & shielded rooms thus are not stray signals or electromagnetic waves, they have been recorded in Bell Jars thus are not an acoustic sound waves. There seem to be an unsheildable wave, what I am unsure of?

I feel the false positives in the field are more directioned through lack of knowledge and education more than actually attributed to technology. Technology cannot scrutinise, it records what it sees or hears, its the human element where everything starts to get distorted and confused. Dust turns into Orbs and noises all of a sudden become Great Aunt betty communicating from beyond!!!

[Juan Torres]

Again education is key when it comes to tools of the trade if you wish to call them that.  EMF's are great for determining if there is a conventional reason for feelings of uneasiness such as bad wiring, or emf leaks.  Ambient temperature gauges with a fast refresh are your friend for determining if that cold feeling you are having is real or imagined. Non contacts are good in very limited situations IMHO as they require a solid surface to be targetted to get an accurate reading.  I would definitely agree with digital audio over analog.  Oh yeah and don't forget the cameras.... The more the merrier,  remember the visible spectrum is a very very very narrow band of the light spectrum I.R. cameras for sure and if you can afford it Ultraviolet =) BTW I LOVE MY MEL METER!!!!! emf/ambient temp/light (Cheering)