Our Own Obama v McCain Contest - With Sonic Horns

Like most other people around the world, I have been following the battle which is raging between the 2 US Presidential candidates. I am simply amazed at the billions of dollars being spent by both candidates on their respective campaigns and it induces the thought that a smaller, less wealthy but sincere, hard working candidate would not stand a chance in this multi billion dollar cauldron!

Primasonics faces similar challenges daily in its business life, selling our innovative, high quality, high performance sonic cleaners to a wide range of processing, storage and power generation plants around the world.

Recently at a gala presentation event in the UK, sponsored by the CN Media Group, held at the Rheged Centre near Penrith, Cumbria, Primasonics International fended off the challenge of the massive blue chip company BAE Systems to scoop the prestigious Exporter Of The Year Award due because 85% of Acoustic Cleaners sales are exported to over 45 countries worldwide.

Everyone at Primasonics International feels extremely proud to have won this award and in the process defeated the Goliath company of BAE Systems. The photograph shows our Export Manager, Lisa Robinson being presented with the award.

Madge isn’t a patch on Doris!

With all the current publicity surrounding the divorce of Madonna, it may be an age thing with me but in my eyes she doesn’t hold a candle to one of my screen and singing favourites Doris Day. OK so I fell in love with Doris from an early age, I am not ashamed to admit it. It happened suddenly when I was watching one of her films (can not remember which one!) when she went to answer the telephone. Before she picked up the receiver, she sexily slipped off her large round red clip-on earring – wow! – that was it for me; I was in love good and proper!

Why I am reminded of her just now is that I am reading her autobiography and thoroughly enjoying it. I will give you a few general facts concerning Doris Mary Ann von Kappelhoff, for that is her real name. Doris was born in Evanston, Cincinnati, Ohio on April 3, 1922, her grandparents being German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard who died aged two, before Doris was born and Paul, she had one son Terry.

There are many web sites dedicated to providing all sorts of information about Doris day, such as Wikipedia's Doris Day web page.
Another one: http://funkin.net/sites/dorisday/ which contains lots of photographs, music downloads etc.

Her mother named her Doris after the silent screen star Doris Kenyon, however she did not change her surname from Kappelhoff to Day until 1940, by which time she was singing for local bandleader Barney Rapp. Her singing career took her on to met many of the world’s best singers and big band leaders such as Les Brown and his Band of Renound. Of course her film career was even more successful, beginning in 1948 at Warner Brothers in the film Romance on the High Seas. Some of her best known film roles were – Calamity Jane – Love Me or Leave Me – Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Pajama Game.

I hope some of you share my love and admiration for this wonderful lady who now lives in Carmel, California. Indeed I found a web site advertising a hotel of which she is a part owner – The Cypress Inn – http://www.cypress-inn.com/

Wonderful lady – thank you Doris!

I doubt that our paths will cross as I can't imagine you having a need for sonic horns ... but you never know.

Sonic Treatment For Snoring

In my business understanding the science of how sound works is the cornerstone to providing effective solutions for the material flow and storage industries. These industries - such as cement, gypsum, pharmaceuticals and grain - all share the common problem of safe silo cleaning. It's a complex problem that people have worked to solve for many years. The cost to industry has been enormous - downtime, accidents, repair and extra maintenance cost. Our sonic horns can eradicate these problems and they have now become an accepted solution around the world.

Q: So what am I leading to with this point?
A: Snoring

Yep, that's right ... snoring.

For as long as anyone can remember, snoring has been a problem common to people everywhere and to date there has been no true, proven and accepted solution. The cost of snoring problems has, like silo cleaning problems, been great ... but of course in a different way. Relationships have been ruined and many a good night's sleep has been lost resulting in tiredness the next day, lethargy, inefficency at work and even accidents and illness. You could argue that if someone could cure snoring, the world would be a much healthier and happier place!

Well, someone may well have come up with the answer - by using sound waves. At the University of Pittsburgh, trials have been conducted with patients suffering from snoring problems. Under a local anaesthetic a radio frequency device (described as a wand-like device) was inserted into the mouth, coming into contact with the soft tissue of the palate. Apparently it's the palate's soft tissue that vibrates during snoring and what this clever device does is emit sound waves that in turn stiffen the soft tissue, preventing it from vibrating. The University's trial results were astonishing - 70% of the snoring patients saw a reduction in their snoring and hence an improvement in their quality of life.

Another piece of evidence of how understanding the complexities of sound waves can bring benefit in ways we might never have imagined.

The Sea Monster is back!

I have mentioned in previous ‘blogs’ of my love of both Monkfish and Samphire – well here is a simple and totally delicious recipe which combines these two ‘treasures’ with a few other special ingredients, to make Rosemary Infused Monkfish Chunks in Air Dried Ham Parcels.

Monkfish, as it is commonly known in the UK, because of its ugly appearance is sometimes referred to as either Sea Monster or Sea Monk. It is mainly found in the North Atlantic and presented in UK fish mongers in the form of fillets. However in Spain it is sold in steak form with the central bone in much the same way we buy halibut steaks.

The recipe for the monkfish/ham bit is here. The fish chunks are coated in warm rosemary infused oil and wrapped in any air dried ham. The recipe uses Parma ham - I prefer Serrano and to me it is just as good and cheaper! This link explains a little about the different air dried hams. Then these parcels are baked in the oven with cherry tomatoes to make a mouth watering mix of flavours.

I then prefer to serve these parcels and tomatoes on a bed of samphire. As I previously mentioned in another blog, I simply place the samphire in a colander, wash well with cold water and then pour a kettle of boiling water over the samphire – that’s it!

So go for it, you will be delighted with this great yet simple recipe and let me know if you liked it. By the way, I have found an exciting new monkfish recipe where the monkfish medallions are baked in a lemon and herb crust – I will let you know how it tastes after I make it this weekend!

FLOUR - Proper Flow Control In The Silo & At Home

Flour is truly a simple yet complex commodity, universally providing the key ingredient to provide mankind with the ‘Bread of Life’. There are many different types of flour, with wheat flour being the most commonly used. There is also:

• corn flour (sometimes called corn starch and used in making ice cream)


• rye flour (wheat free with low gluten content)


• tapioca flour (wheat free, gluten free and made from the root of the cassava plant)


• rye flour (wheat free and makes a denser bread such as pumpernickel)

The list of wheat free and gluten free flours is a long one!

Our household flour comes to us in small neatly packed bags and perhaps we only appreciate the true properties of flour once it has been baked into wonderfully smelling new warm bread.

In Ireland, especially in the country areas when I was a small boy the majority of bread baked was called ‘Soda Bread’ which took its name from the fact that instead of using yeast as a ‘rising’ ingredient, to make Irish Soda Bread, a combination of buttermilk liquid and sodium bicarbonate power were used to create carbon dioxide bubbles to ‘rise’ the dough. The buttermilk of course was the by-product of 'churning' whole milk to make butter; indeed it was also used by the farmer’s wife as a thirst quenching drink, stored in the cool of the butter pantry.

When my mother made soda bread she baked them on a flat griddle above the fire to form Soda Farls. During this process she always had flour up to her elbows and occasionally on her nose where she had rubbed it to stop an itch. I used to watch this entire process with awe and my reward for helping her to clean up afterwards would be a slice of fresh, warm soda bread, smothered in Irish country butter – I can still remember that exquisite taste to this day!

As I got older, I was also allowed to help in the dough making process and remember on one occasion when in the middle of adding the flour, she was called away to speak with a visitor. I was instructed to add a tablespoon full of plain flour to thicken the dough and being somewhat complacent, instead of using the big spoon, I decided to tip in straight from (in those days) the small cotton sack. Well at first the flour did not flow but remained ‘firmly’ in the bag until I tipped the bag higher, when ‘whoosh' - half of the flour in the bag suddenly ended up in the mixing bowl and all over me. Of course it ruined the dough and also ruined my chances that day of tasting a freshly buttered slice of soda bread! If you fancy making some Irish Soda Farls you will find a simple recipe here.

Through my company Primasonics I have encountered the exact same flow characteristics of flour within silos. It holds up on the side walls of the silo, making silo cleaning difficult and the build up can become so great that it all dislodges with such force as to cause the flour to run like water out of the silo discharge device and onto the floor. To solve this side wall build up we install a sonic horn of the correct frequency on top of the silo and sound it for a few seconds every few minutes. This prevents side wall build up thus providing controlled ‘mass flow’ but the sound waves also keep the flour within the silo at a flat level on top, thus making it much easier for stocktaking with much more reliable stock figures as a result.

Let me know by e-mail (sound@sonic-horns) if you get round to making and enjoying some Irish Soda Bread!

Never Used A Sonic Horn? Rent One & Try It Out

Having exported our sonic horns to over 40 countries around the world over the last 11 years, it’s still hard to believe that there are companies in key industries such as cement and carbon black production who have never heard of a sonic horn, let alone used one!

As with all innovative technologies, it can sometimes be difficult to convince an engineer to try a new product if they have been used to using an older, though less efficient system such as soot blowers or air cannons.

So what’s the answer?

Well, we can quote them great case studies and client referrals and that is sometimes enough – but not always. Then I came up with the idea of sonic horn rentals. It’s a way that allows a company to test the effectiveness of a sonic horn and experience for themselves better plant performance and financial savings without having to commit to a capital investment right away.

So far the idea is proving a great hit. Our sonic horns are out on rental in a variety of countries and for all different kinds of applications and many companies have since followed through with a purchase order. To understand more about renting sonic horns please go to our Sonic Horn Rental FAQ page.

Baghouse Filters & Filter Sock Problems

These days with the rising price of gas, food etc., we all have to try harder to make what we already have last longer rather than, as we perhaps have done in the past, simply throw it away and buy a new replacement.

However having to ‘make do’ with existing industrial plant and wear parts does have a serious downside in terms of loss of performance which in turn results in reduced plant operation – thus a loss in revenue.

One typical example of this is the filter socks/bags used in a baghouse filter. Those of us who either operate or maintain such baghouse filters know the problem only too well. The cost of replacement filter bags has increased significantly over the last few years and so there is growing pressure from the company accountants to make these filter bags last longer. Also there are the additional costs of labour and downtime to be considered.

However there is a surefire way to dramatically increase the bag life whilst at the same time preventing material build up on both the internal baghouse walls and hopper discharge. The simple solution is to install the correct model and number of Sonic Horns (also known as Acoustic Cleaners). See our baghouse cleaning page.

The Primasonics® range of Sonic Horns has been successfully employed over a wide range of filter types and sizes to offer:

• Significant increase in filter bag life



• Continual lower pressure drops across the bags



• Continuous cleaning of all internal surfaces



• Complete evacuation of the filter hopper



• Reduction in compressed air usage

Some of our clients have experienced a doubling of bag life with all the financial saving that brings. It really does not matter which type of baghouse you have or its size; we tailor design the correct solution. For example in this photograph you can see a single cell stand alone cement pre-packing baghouse jet pulse filter which only requires a single sonic horn housed within a mounting tube and flange, high up on the hopper section.

Going to the other extreme, this second photograph shows a huge smelting plant reverse air filter which required the installation of a greater number of larger, more powerful sonic horns to both help clean the bags and prevent the twelve hoppers from blocking.

On our web site you can find a section providing Enquiry Forms, one for baghouse filter enquiries which is available either in ‘on-line’ format or as a download.

Try it on one of your baghouse filters; you can even initially take out a sonic horn rental. You will be both amazed and delighted!