Fiction: To Kill an Atomic Subwoofer

by Dionysus

Robert Koch, a German bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905, stated not long before his death in 1910, "The day will come when man will have to fight noise as inexorably as cholera and the plague."

How much pounding from a loud, booming car stereo can one take over a period of months or even years from the dregs of modern society without the feeling of going insane from the consistent racket?  I wondered this aloud one evening when it hit me: I had to do something about the Neanderthal family across the street who blasts their car stereos all day and part of the night while they make dirt tracks out in their front yard with their ATVs.  My neighbors and I were fed up with the noise and couldn't deal with it anymore.

This Neanderthal family didn't seem to mind at all that their booming car stereo, shrieking its obnoxious and dreadful-sounding tripe, has been blaring throughout the neighborhood every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, as well as weekday evenings, for months on end.  It's absurd enough that the vehicle my annoying, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal neighbor is blasting rap from is a 1979 Toyota, a faded green rust bucket truck that should have given up the ghost and gone to a junkyard back in 1989.  Just to see that old truck pull up to his front door with some no-name Stuff Mart rap music rattling my eardrums and vibrating my windows was enough to make me have fantasies about setting his truck on fire - until I came up with a better and safer idea.  I was going to remotely destroy his radio.

First, I had to figure out a way to do this.  After over a year of having to listen to this horrible thump, thump, thumping going on weekend after weekend, I resolved that I had to do something, and it had to be something creative, subversive and electronically devious.  This was going to be a fun hack!

Calling the police was not an option because the police don't take noise disturbances seriously.  Besides, they wouldn't care that someone was disturbing the peace with a booming car stereo week after week, month after month, unless of course that stereo was right next door to a cop's house.  I knew that calling the cops in the middle of the day over a stereo being too loud just wasn't going to be a priority for our city's finest and I doubt they'd understand why it was so annoying for me and my neighbors to have to put up with this aggravation.

I knew I had to do this right, and I knew there would be a risk I would get caught, but I was at my wit's end.  Even though the city where I live had passed a new ordinance stating that a car stereo could not be heard further away than 25 feet from the car itself, I knew it would be futile to try to get the city to enforce it.  I also realized that, even after passing this useless ordinance, the city had done little or nothing to stop the horrible menace that had become a plague on American society.

After a few days of tossing around ideas, it was time to set up shop.  I had a little electronics experience building FM transmitters and a couple of amplifiers for the transmitters, so I was no stranger to a soldering gun.  The problem was that I had no idea what I could do to stop this goof from ruining my and my neighbors' weekends at home.

I knew I had a lot of research to do before I could come up with the proper method, a method that would not only silence this inconsiderate drone but would be effective enough to teach him a valuable lesson about consideration for others' sanity.  After doing some Internet research, I knew I had many options available to me.  I also had a friend who was an electronics engineer involved in laser and electromagnetic research, and he was great at hacking electronics.  Perfect.

The first idea I thought about, though not very seriously, was completely obliterating the car stereo with a Directional Microwave EMP Rifle 50 kilowatt X-band Military Microwave Magnetron.  I'd found this machine online, and I was instantly intrigued.  This device can be reduced to the size of a Super Soaker squirt gun.  A machine of this caliber could cause semiconductors to burn out, force microprocessors to malfunction, create radio frequency noise, cause ionization of air or gases, or even erase computer data on hard drives.  In all essence, a machine this powerful would probably be illegal and too dangerous.  It could even possibly kill small animals in the area, leaving only cockroaches to run around.  The EMP was nixed.  Besides, I wouldn't be able to afford one of those, because the company offering them for sale had an asking price of five hundred dollars.

Then I came up with another idea that had nothing to do with destroying his car stereo, but had to do with annoying him and his entire family.  I'd recalled reading a couple of years ago about how to make the entire side of a wooden building resonate by inserting a nail into a piece of wood and attaching a wire to the nail.  Then you would begin to rub the wire back and forth between your fingers and it would start vibrating so intensely that it would begin to make the side of the building resonate, creating an unbearable noise inside.  A piece of wire and a nail was a simple hack, but not so easy to set up because of the high risk of being caught.  Still, that wouldn't solve the noise problem.

My vision was of them all running outside holding their eardrums in pain, just like I do when I start to hear their horrible music playing that beat up truck.  Then I realized that wouldn't work either, because their house is made out of cinder blocks.

I needed a better and more effective idea.  My electronics-savvy friend suggested that we build a remote controlled TASER type device, which would send a burst of electromagnetic energy to my Neanderthal neighbor's stereo, shorting it out and maybe causing even more damage to other electronic parts in his truck like the ignition coil or any sensors.  Maybe it would even blast his battery and send his car hood flying up in the air.  It would have been hilarious to see his driver's seat explode through the roof, but those kinds of things only happen in silly cartoons.

The basic theory is similar to a regular television remote control that transmits energy in the form of pulses of infrared light.  The advantage of infrared light is that it is invisible to the human eye, even to the crossed eyeballs of my annoying neighbors.  I felt confident that my electromagnetic signal, using a remote-type transmitter, would be invisible to them if I could figure out how to construct such a device.  That's when I called my electronic hacker friend to help me.

I'm far from being a Nikola Tesla, a Michael Faraday, or even a friendly neighborhood electronics "guru."  I just wanted the inconsiderate moron across the street to silence his stereo.

I got to work.  The Internet helped tremendously with ideas and supported my research plans quite well.  I had a cardboard box in my closet with some old capacitors, a few IC chips, a bunch of resistors, solder, and my old FM radio transmitters with their transistors, so I dug everything out to see what I could work with.  I knew the transmitters could send out a signal of a "whopping" tenth of a watt, but I was looking for some real power.

The idea was for the transmitter to send a signal to the stereo that was powerful enough to fry its contents and silence the no-brand rap and country refuse that had become our little neighborhood's wakeup call.  I also knew I had to get within about a hundred feet of that old, green Toyota rust bucket to do my evil duty.  My friend estimated that if we had two transmitters and the amplifier running at the same time and changed the resistor values to get the maximum output, I might zap the perpetrating stereo easily, blow up both the transmitters and the amplifier, electrocute myself, or perhaps all of the above.  My friend also managed to snag some spare old military parts and junk from a buddy of his, just in case we needed some extra components.

I called another cohort and borrowed an old remote control from an expensive remote controlled car, which I would use to turn the transmitters on and off.  The transmitters and amplifier would have to be keyed on and off quickly to keep them from burning up from the intense, short bursts of electromagnetic power that they were going to send to my neighbor's green rust bucket.

For the next three weeks, my friend and I spent every night soldering and de-soldering, burning our fingers, and making LED lights blink and IC chips get hot while we worked to assemble my little project.  We tested and retested, blew capacitors and resistors and said more curse words than a trucker on a CB radio.  My friend tried to teach me to use a multi-tester, but I never got the hang of it.

An antenna also had to be built and tuned to the exact frequency we were going to use to obliterate the annoying neighbor's stereo.  The frequency had to be in a high enough range in the spectrum in order to deliver the type of damage we were looking for.  The antenna had to be extremely directional and small enough not to be too obvious.  I had to make a few visits to a local electronic parts store and consult with my friend to figure out how to make this antenna work properly.  I knew I had to be extra careful, because I could easily burn myself or cause myself a shock if I did not build the antenna correctly.  I chose to use PVC pipe casing, which I'd painted dark green, to be almost hidden among the group of trees we were going to hide in and to protect the actual antenna.  After a few tries and some tweaking, I felt I was ready to try out my new "invention" without my friend, because he was often busy working extra hours at his job.  This was five weeks after I began the project.

The laser devices were contained inside black cases about the size of a CD case, but one-inch thick.  The cases looked ordinary and not very threatening.  I only hoped they would end up doing what I hoped they would do - burn up his stereo - so we could all get some peace and quiet.

One evening, at about 11 pm, I went out in my backyard to try to zap some old electronic crap I had lying around the house.  My partner in crime had to go home, and I just decided I couldn't wait any longer to try out the new invention.  My first victim was an old Nokia cell phone.  I powered it up and placed it on the back deck, its little green screen illuminating a small square of my wall.  Then I assembled my projects into a triangle and set the PVC pipe antenna up to aim directly at the cell phone, which I had placed about 25 feet away.

Nervously, I sat there for a minute, holding the remote control in my right hand and hoping I wasn't going to electrocute or burn myself into oblivion.  i didn't really know what to expect.

I couldn't imagine that I was going to affect this cell phone in any way.  I sucked in my breath, aimed the antenna at the glowing Nokia, quickly keyed up the transmitters with the remote control, and saw a bright flicker actually shoot from the phone!  It was just a flash, and I thought that it might have been a coincidence that it flickered just as I hit the remote.  I thought the screen had just flickered with a horizontal white line, but I wasn't close enough to see the screen clearly.  Once again I hit the remote, letting it stay on five seconds longer than the first time.  Several flickers and a crackle came out of the phone's speaker!  I was shocked.

Then I decided that was it: I was just going to zap this old phone into a piece of fried plastic.  I thumbed the remote button, the Nokia buzzed and crackled, and the next thing I heard was a loud pop and smelled some electrical burning.  The Nokia died on the deck, smoke that smelled like burning wires coming from its innards.  I'd succeeded in killing the cell phone.  I just stood there in disbelief, staring at the melted phone.  In my excitement, I grabbed the phone and then quickly dropped it, because it was smoking hot.  So I stood there and started laughing.  I also had an old Hypercom T7P 257K credit card terminal that wouldn't power up, so I put it up on the deck.  It too had a narrow, horizontal green screen.

I walked 50 paces backwards and thumbed the remote, taking aim after a slight adjustment to the antenna.  Nothing happened.  Again, I shot at the terminal, moving the antenna and one of the transmitters a few inches.  A crack appeared, and a weird smell started coming from the terminal.  Walking over to look at it, I could see that the screen had cracked and the liquid crystal inside had spilled its guts.  Two of the buttons had actually melted into the body of the terminal.

We were on to something really good.  I shot my friend an email explaining what had happened.  He was very pleased.  I was proud of him too.  He'd spent most of the past fifteen years working with electronics in a military shipyard, where I knew he was never allowed even to think about building any device like this one.

The next day was Friday, and we agreed to meet early Saturday morning at about 2 am to get set up to drag our equipment across the road.  I told him that this would be the night.  No longer was I going to be disturbed by the neighbor's annoying music.  It was time for the car stereo to die a deserving and hopefully quick death.

Across the street, shielding part of my view of the Neanderthal family's house, was a large group of trees with thin trunks nestled next to a chain link fence.  The trees were in a corner and made a perfect hiding place.  I knew that all we'd have to do would be to move the equipment across the street and pile it near the trees to get set up quickly.  I'd found a great spot to erect the antenna, pointing directly at the truck, which was parked a little too close to their little cinder block house.  Most of my equipment was already across the street, lying in the grass and waiting for my friend to arrive.  He just had to see this.  After all the help he'd given me, I knew he'd want to see just what was going to happen; after all, he was the one with most of the technical knowledge.

At 1:45 am, he showed up, slowly drove past my house, turned around, and parked up the road, a block away.  I'd suggested that he not park in my driveway.  The last thing I wanted to do was arouse anyone's suspicion.

As soon as he walked the block to my house, I just looked at him and laughed.  I couldn't contain the excitement and nervousness I was feeling.  What we were going to do was illegal and risky, but silencing that subwoofer and stereo was going to happen.  There would be no changing our minds.  That irritating stereo was going down.

By the time we calmed down, it was time to get busy.  With the destruction, that is.  We both walked across the street and squatted down behind the trees in the corner, leaning against the chain link fence.  I had a tiny light, but it was still hard to see.  I had to feel my way around, and he helped me get everything set up in the exact position that we needed.  My comrade bravely stood up and checked the antenna and its position, and then we crouched as comfortably as we could in the weeds, dried leaves, and broken branches.  He asked if I was ready.  I was, so he hesitantly handed me the remote.  I think he really wanted to blast the stereo himself.

I broke through the trees and scratched the side of my face on a branch.  It stung like hell, but I was so excited by this time that I didn't care.  I was on my hands and knees, and aimed the remote at the transmitters.  Just a little scared of the antenna above my head, I pressed the button while looking at my right hand, holding the remote and shaking with nervousness.  We heard a ping sound, like a rock had hit a piece of metal.  It sounded like it had come from the area near the truck.  We looked at each other, puzzled.  I tried again and heard another weird noise, this time a faint grating sound, not loud enough to wake up the Neanderthal family.  The grating sound sounded like it actually was underneath the truck.  We both sat there for a couple of minutes.  As mosquitoes bit us, we were looking at each other and wondering what was going to happen next.

By this time, I just got pissed, said "Die!" under my breath, clenched my teeth, and thumbed it again, holding it down as hard as I could, as though I were trying to take out my frustration on the remote.  I saw a small blue flash inside the truck and heard a pop like a light bulb going out.  I glanced over at my friend, and he wondered in a whisper if we'd actually hit the stereo or if we'd done even worse damage to the truck.

I told him that we'd better get back to my apartment.  I was afraid that we might be seen, or that someone in that cinder block house would wake up and come outside to investigate.  Neither one of us wanted to face a crazed neighbor who might have a weapon, like a wooden club.

We hurriedly grabbed all the pieces of equipment.  I yanked the antenna from the tree, and we ran across the road to my apartment.  I was afraid I was going to drop one of the cases in the middle of the road.

For the next hour or so, we sat in the dark of my living room, discussing the whole experiment and wondering just what might have happened across the road when we tried to tase my neighbor's stereo.  I wanted pictures of the aftermath.

A couple of hours later, my eyes got heavy.  It was nearly 4 am.  My cohort decided to head home, and I opened the door to watch him walk down the street to his car under the glaring orange streetlight glow.

Around 11 the next morning, I awoke from a strange dream to recall what we had done the night before.  Panic started gripping me.  There was a message from my friend on the phone, asking me to call him.

First, I had to see if there was any evidence of our dastardly doings.  I pulled down a few blinds on the living room window and saw my loud neighbor outside, bent underneath the hood of his truck.  To his right was his wife's green Chevy with its hood up too.  He kept going back and forth from one vehicle to another.  I just stood there in shock and said, "Oops!"

The best way to get a closer look was just to go outside and pretend to do yard work.  With my eyes still sticky with sleep, I stepped outside, grabbed the garden hose, and started to hose off my dusty car.  The Neanderthal neighbor's offspring came outside, and I heard one of them ask, "What happened, Daddy?  Why won't the cars start?"  My eyes got big.  I heard him cursing and he yelled at his kid to go back inside.  To get a better glimpse of what was going on, I backed up to hose off the front of my car so I could see across the street.  I saw my neighbor get in the truck and attempt to start it.  I heard nothing.  He then did the same thing with the nice green Chevy Lumina they have.  Once again, nothing.  He just kept cursing until his wife came out.  He yelled at her, telling her to go back inside too.  She slammed the door.

I went back inside, stifling laughter, and fell back on my couch and let go!  I think we ended up frying the ignition coils or sensors, and now both cars were out of order.  I ran, called my co-conspirator, and told him what was going on outside, and I swear I never heard him laugh so hard in my life!

Later that afternoon, he was able to get the Lumina started, but the faded green truck was still dead.  And so was its stereo.

A few months later, one of my kind neighbors told me that the loud music playing neighbor had told her how he came out one morning to find his stereo wires with burn marks on them.  He'd apparently also described how the faceplate had been half melted in his Toyota truck!  I feigned no knowledge of the incident and told her that was the strangest story I'd ever heard!

It's now been over a year that no one in our neighborhood has been subjected to the obnoxious ghetto blasting we had to listen to.  The Neanderthal family with the loud music has remained silent ever since, but they always keeps their porch light on at night now.  Sometimes, one just has to take matters in their own hands to get the job done.

Our work was accomplished, and the neighborhood is much quieter now that the annoying neighbor no longer has a car stereo to blast!  It's really a shame about the other parts of their cars.

By the way, this whole story is complete and utter bullshit.  Just thought I'd let you know.