Howard,

I know a local ham who hooks his rigs to a Bluetooth transmitter and it 
makes it possible for him to copy speech much better.  If he uses the 
mikes in his hearing aids, he says that he can only understand less than 
%50 of the speech on the air.

Bob, K8LR, [log in to unmask]

On 12/9/2015 4:55 AM, howard kaufman wrote:
> Thanks to everybody for your replies.
> I am wondering if a bluetooth transmitter could be driven by the headphone
> jack on a radio, and if you could program a cW filter in to your hearing
> aids, so that one ear would have a wide range, and the other say would only
> respond to 400-600 hz.  That way only the signal you wanted to copy would be
> in both ears.
> I remember an old MFJ audio filter that used that effect to great advantage.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
> Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2015 4:34 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: off topic
>
> Howard,
>
> I started wearing hearing aids about a year and a half ago.  My hearing is
> down about 50 DB in each ear but my left hear had an infection a couple of
> years ago so I have some tinnitus left in that ear.  The hearing aids of
> today are amazing.  You have to get used to hearing things differently.
> Water running into the sink sounds metallic to me, for example, and until
> you get used to different things sounding differently, you may be somewhat
> frustrated trying to get used to them.  The thing I do not like about them
> is the reduced spatial awareness.  In other words, it feels like you are
> wearing a football helmet because your ability to be aware by feel of
> objects around you is greatly reduced.  You won't notice this as much
> indoors walking around your rooms as you will outdoors.  You should try
> various hearing aids to see how they sound relating to this aspect of
> mobility and especially in outdoor conditions.  For example, at the school
> for the blind in Nebraska, we were 10 blocks from the main downtown area of
> the town of 8000 people.  When walking back to school from downtown, it was
> easy to lose track of how many blocks you had cover during the return trip
> but there was one very noticeable indicator and it was a large tree right on
> the edge of the sidewalk as you passed by it.  You could feel it spatially
> as you walked by it and it even cut off some sound it was so big around.
> That was the signal that the next corner was the school for the blind
> crossing.  Hearing aids reduce this ability of feeling objects further away
> but there are so many high end digital hearing aids these days, it pays to
> take your time in trying various aids out before deciding on one.  Plus,
> most of the newer hearing aids today use bluetooth to allow you to be
> directly connected to the hearing aids.  You hear the phone inside your ears
> and not on the outside.  It is in stereo, too, for music.  Plus, those
> hearing aids that are high end, also get their software upgraded frequently
> because the companies are out to improve them in every way possible.  Each
> year when I go in for a new hearing test, my software gets upgraded because
> they are always coming up with new tricks to improve the quality of sound.
> When I first got mine, I went back several times during a year to have him
> fine tune the hearing aids.  My hearing isn't all that bad but when I first
> went to get hearing aids, my left ear, with the infection, was another 10 DB
> down compared to where it is now so I really felt I needed them.  Don't
> spend your money on low end hearing aids because you will be discouraged
> right off the bat.  You are going to get a lot of other input with people on
> this list who have lived with hearing aids a lot longer than I so take all
> that information under advisement when considering your purchase.  Finally,
> in spite of what I've said, I sat on my deck swing last summer and enjoyed
> the crickets that were a long ways off and I could hear the birds around the
> neighborhood singing, too.  So, it is getting used to how to hear with them
> more than just about anything else.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "howard kaufman" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2015 1:27 PM
> Subject: off topic
>
>
>> My apologies, because this is very off topic.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am beginning to think seriously about hearing aids.
>>
>> Women's voices with foreign accents are really giving me trouble on the
>> phone.
>>
>> The problem is that all my mobility is done on facial vision, or sound
>> shadows, or what ever you want to call it.
>>
>> I tried my friend's $6,000 hearing aids, and they were amazing.
>>
>> Amazing that is until I couldn't hear the sides of a door jam, or the
>> widening ambience of the stairs in front of me.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is it possible to have hearing aids, and still hear the things or lack of
>> things that I need to hear to be a good traveller?
>>
>> So far, I am able to hear cars soon enough to cross the street safely.
>>
>> Its just the things I use like trees and poles that I don't want to loose.
>>
>> Its not sound, as much as the absence of sound that I listen to.
>>
>> I am sure many of you do the same, and I am sure many of you have never
>> heard what I am talking about.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Howard Kaufman MSW LCSW
>>
>>
>>