If you are into Spirit Communications You’re Gonna Love This:
The P-SB7 Frequency Sweep Radio from DAS
Several years ago,
in what now seems like a whole different world, I sat with a long
-time friend and waxed poetic about the possibilities of real time
spirit communications in the modern era.
At that point Frank Sumption had about four of his hand
made boxes in the field and word was filtering down about what
users were hearing.
Back then, getting a box was almost impossible, but the promise of
being able to talk with the departed was tantalizing.
As time passed
several box owners were releasing taped sessions and one was
traveling the country and charging a considerable fee for private
sessions with the device.
While the recorded sessions seemed appealing, I began to
wonder just how much it could cost to build a similar device.
I am an Amateur Radio Operator (HAM) and I had seen Frank’s
original schematics, so I went back to my friend, who was another
ham and electronics engineer to put the question to him.
At first he was totally turned off by the proposal, but
after a little cajoling, he agreed to give it a shot.
What came forth was the MiniBox, which was smaller and
built from state of the art components. A few months later my
friend was in the Spirit Communications business and my
organization, the Association for the Study of Unexplained
Phenomenon, (ASUP, Inc.) was travelling about testing the device
with random groups.
Well, that was
then, and my primary objective, to see a Spirit Communications
device that would be affordable for anyone who was interested, had
been lost in the frenzy for custom made boxes with an equally high
price tag. Our testing
showed that the device worked, but it still was not in the hands
of the people who really could test it, the field investigators
who live on limited budgets but handle most of the work in our
field.
Almost two years
after the start of my Odyssey, after field testing a half dozen
devices that claimed to work as well as Frank’s Box, I had a
chance encounter with Gary Galka, the inventor of the Mel Meter
and a man I consider the new Gizmo-maker extraordinaire to the
Paranormal field. I shared my vision with him, and gave him a long
“white paper” that outlined the history of ITC Research, from the
beginning up to the Radio Shack HACK.
It got his interest and he began talking to other
researchers about what they really wanted in such a device.
Gary is an
interesting guy! He doesn’t
think quite the way other folks in our field do, maybe because he
entered the field from a totally unique prospective.
Gary had lost his daughter several years ago and was
interested in any way to communicate with her, not like a lot of
people I have talked to while doing my Spirit Communications
research. But Gary is an electronics guru; he makes his living
building and marketing high tech testing gear to a number of
varied fields. He understood the need for every product to be well
made and aimed at the specific needs of the target audience.
He also understood that Spirit Communications was a very
sensitive subject.
After a lot of talking and research, Gary announced to me that he
had a prototype and had created it based solely on what he had
learned from the investigators he had polled.
The initial tests of the prototype were done by
paranormalist Chris Fleming last October in front of a network
television audience.
After some minor tweaking, the final design went into production
in January 2010.
So, what is this miraculous piece of apparatus? The device is
called the P-SB7, ITC
Research Device. When used by a
properly trained individual, under certain circumstances, the
P-SB7 will provide results similar that of an EVP recorder, but in
real time. The P-SB7 utilizes a milli-second adjustable Forward or
Reverse frequency "sweep" technique coupled with a proprietary
high frequency synthetic noise or "white noise" distributed
between frequency steps, both in the AM and FM radio band. There
are two discreet audio outputs; Earphone and Speaker and a bright
EL back light display with manual ON/OFF select is ideal for
viewing in the dark. The P-SB7 has an internal recharge circuit
that maintains power to three "AAA" rechargeable batteries and is
intended to be used by professional investigators to help promote
the field of Paranormal ITC Research.
The unit is unbelievably small, the size of an MP-3 Player and can
be carried in a shirt pocket; when using the optional stereo
speakers from the Deluxe package, the device has better audio
output than any “spirit box” I have used, with crisp sound but the
addition of “white noise” between the frequency steps makes the
device seem much smoother and noise free. Using the P-SB7 with an
earphone allows the researcher to utilize the device while doing
other chores at a scene, so it would be possible to hear instant
feedback from the area in real time, something like doing EVP work
without the delay in playback.
Investigators, who are dedicated to this kind of research, are as a
whole very demanding. While size is important, the ability to
capture the illusive messages they seek is of paramount
importance. When the
device first came to the ASUP office, I set it up using the
amplified speakers and randomly set the wheel in motion.
To my surprise, without any fussing with the controls, I
soon heard a familiar voice coming from the device.
For all the years that I have been watching the growth of
this portion of our research, I have always been aware that
whenever anyone was using any “box” in my presence, the device
would eventually call me by name.
This has happened in front of a large group in an
auditorium, in classrooms, labs and homes.
I do not solicit that response, no one mentions my
presence, but inevitably all the boxes eventually begin to call me
by name. I try to
ignore them, but at one testing session several years ago, I
answered the device, saying, “What do you want?”
The box immediately replied in the same voice, “Hello!” The
P-SB7 is no different, after running less than five minutes,
without any prompting, that familiar voice said clearly, “Rick?”
While testing the P-SB7 in a field situation, the unit performed
admirably, again “saying” things that were relevant and in context
to the investigation. We did notice that the device, like most
others, work better with one operator asking questions and with a
limited number of participants.
In our normal field work, we limit the inside team to six
investigators working in pairs, which did not seem to be a
problem.
When dealing with any
“Spirit Box” the discussion will always turn to the two inevitable
questions; how does it work and isn’t the voices being heard
simply artifact that the listener interprets as a message?
For years detractors have argued that what was being
reported as voice messages are simply matrixing, thus matrixing was an early concern for our testing of all the previous devices.
For those who do not understand the term, allow me a moment to
elaborate. Matrixing is when the human ear hears bits of
sounds and the brain attempts to interpret them as a whole.
The best example of this was covered in depth on PBS radio several
years ago. A college linguistics professor was working with
some basic Mandarin dialogue tapes. She left her office for
a moment to go into the next room to prepare a cup of tea and
while there, she heard someone singing. On closer inspection she
found that she had left an audio tape looped in her computer for
analysis. From a distance she was hearing only bits of the
selection, but her brain was interpreting those sounds as song.
Mandarin is of course a language that is very
lyrical to begin with, so it is relatively easy to think you are
hearing a song from a distance. To further test this
hypothesis, the professor began to play the loop in public places
and an astounding number of people asked her where she had found
this beautiful song. This is the epitome of matrixing, they
were hearing human speech but their brains almost always
interpreted it as music.
The
argument that the original “box” was simply grabbing bits and
pieces that some would interpret as words was offered as an
explanation for the phenomenon, but later designs added a sweep
timing circuit that would change the rate of play, yet it was
still called matrixing by detractors. The ASUP spent a good deal
of time addressing these concerns and found that the later devices
tested by trained investigators were simply not misinterpretations
or matrixing. Too many
questions were answered in kind and context to be able to point to
misinterpretation of sounds, especially when technical jargon is
used and the ability to pull whole words from random reversed bits
of the broadcast band stretched the bounds of credibility in that
argument.
So, if not matrixing, how does the device work and
who are we hearing.
The first consideration is that there is no “transmitter” involved
in any of these devices, there is no microphone, so whoever is
answering, they can hear us without any manipulation,
amplification or transmission of our voices.
The device is a rather sophisticated radio, in the case of
the P-SB7 one that can utilize both AM and FM, as the user wishes,
both work well in our initial tests.
After the initial set-up, the operator will set the sweep
rate to his or her liking, even monitoring the sweep in reverse if
they so choose. It does not take long for a message to be heard,
in hundreds of test subjects over the last few years, I have
encountered only three people who reported hearing nothing in a
test session!
As to who we might be conversing with, that is yet
another question and the suggested answers run the gamut from
extraterrestrials to ghosts, time travellers and those from
another dimension, not to mention a host of thought about remote
mind talking! As a
researcher, I will have to withhold comment on both of those
questions and say we simply do not know conclusively at this time,
but that something seems to be communicating through the device.
What is important to note is that the world of ITC
(instrumental trans-communications) has been with us for some
time, harkening back to the days of the first Marconi radio sets.
Shortly before his death in 1971, General David Sarnoff, former
President of RCA and NBC, an icon of American telecommunications
told friends and colleagues that while a young man working as a
wireless operator for the Marconi Radio company, he often heard
“voices” over his monitoring device. Sarnoff was the first
Marconi operator to hear the S.O.S. calls from the ill-fated
Titanic in 1912, so there is no reason to doubt the claims, even
though the Marconi receivers lacked the technical ability to
modulate voice.
The real breakthrough in spirit communications
came in 1971 when Paul Jones, G.W. Meek and Hans Heckman began
serious research into two way communications with the departed.
That study continued through the 70s until Meek introduced psychic
William O’Neill to the mix and with him a departed spirit, Dr.
George Jeffries Mueller, who had died several years earlier.
Mueller, a former Cornell professor and NASA collaborator
suggested enhancements to the group’s receiver, and a 13 tone
speech generator was added to a frequency generator to create a
human voice. By 1980 SpiriCom, as it would be called, was at
its height and journalist and researcher D. Scott Rogo began his
study of the phenomenon, which culminated in a book, Telephone
Calls from the Dead.
Through the 1980s and 90’s SpiriCom and ITC
flourished and new advances were made, including the use of
television and computers. Researcher and author Mark Macy was
instrumental in creating joint projects between experimenters in
America and Europe, culminating in a new group the INIT who had
even more spectacular results, most of which flew under the
international media’s radar, so to speak. While all of this was
happening, most of the paranormal community was blissfully unaware
of its presence in general; with only basic EVP experiments
garnered any real coverage.
Little more was heard outside the true ITC
researchers until Frank Sumption, a ham radio operator from
Colorado, introduced his hand made “box” which admittedly was
built with discarded components from radios and TV sets.
Frank’s original purpose was to listen for
extraterrestrials, but in no time the idea that the box was
communicating with the departed took center stage.
Since then there have been a host of similar devices, but
none as compact and sophisticated as DAS Distribution’s P-SB7 and
certainly not at this price.
While similar but larger devices sell for over $500 in many
cases, the P-SB7 is a steal at $119.50; the device’s designer,
Gary Galka has kept his promise to put quality instrumentation
into the hands of investigators at a price they can afford.
If you have ever toyed with the idea of expanding your
toolkit to include a “spirit box” this is the time and the P-SB7
is the unit.
Two Configurations of the P-SB7 are currently being offered. (1) P-SB7
Price: $119.50 Price: $129.90
To learn more about this and other devices in the Mel Meter
lineup, you can go to:
http://www.pro-measure.com or call their toll free number
888-344-0111.
© 2010 by the Association for the Study of
Unexplained Phenomenon, Inc. (ASUP).
All rights reserved.
