Surveillance

[John Meagher]

jdow wrote:

> I have a nasty turn of mind sometimes, Jon. I got to thinking about
> traceable to NIST. If the instrument used was ever compared to an
> instrument with documentation for its tractability to NIST then the
> instrument used is also traceable to NIST with suitable comments
> about the accuracy of the tractability. Traceable to within 10dB is
> indeed still traceable and usable in court if the lawyer does not
> let himself be bullied about it.
> 
> (And if the fellow needs better than 10dB of accuracy to prove the
> noisemaker is out of tolerable limits then he's in trouble to prove
> his whole case to begin with.)
> 
I'm not sure all that would be necessary to make a case.  If you set the 
sound up so you could just discern the sound of normal traffic passing 
but were blown away when the perp revved his engines, you could probably 
make the point.  You would want to make sure there was no automatic gain 
control turned on.  In most cases the law prohibits exceeding annoyance 
levels, which aren't traceable to NIST anyway.  Yet.

John