Sound Travels- Windmills

Mr.MacAlpine, I appreciate your fixation on decibel measurement, but
I want to relate a story of my own.

You know where I live...on top of Seawall Hill. It was very still here this
morning and the stillness brought to mind nights when I am kept awake or
awakened by noise. I jumped in my car and calculated the mileage from my
door to the site of numerous beach parties on the shore in summer.

My bedroom faces the east. Many a night when the young are celebrating their
lives, I not only hear the noise of music and talking; I can understand
every word distinctly - every cuss word and expetlive, even the words of the
playing music as if it was outside my open window.

It is 1.5 km. from my driveway to the shore. How do you set a proper
distance with the decibel measure as all you've got and seem to trust in?
There are nights when I close my window and bedroom door and move accross
the hall to a bedroom on the western side.

Let me add another true story. On Saturday last, a wedding took place at a
neighbors nearby. Again it was a fairly still evening. I heard nothing at my
place, but in another direction a neighbor cleary heard the music at 300 m.
away.

That may not seem so strange.However,over the mountain, 3700 m. away from
the party, according to the map,in Gullivers Cove just below the mountains
crest, the music from the party was heard, not as clearly assuredly as at
300 m., but nonetheless it was heard clearly enough that a resident stepped
outside to see if the music was coming from the nearby woods, if not
consistently but certainly with some sporadic regularity.

I am not criticizing my neighbour for celebrating a family members wedding.
It's the bravest who have the courage to marry today. They need to be
celebrated. My question is: "What distance would a bylaw have to set, and
what sort of decibel measurement would be effective in that case? Noise
differs, of course, when the grass is long than when it is flattened by the
elements...., when trees are cut or grow, and countless other factors.

It seems to me that determining a fixed decibel maximum would be
commensurate with shooting yourself in the foot.

Dan Mills