When I was a kid (on Cape Cod) you always heard them on foggy mornings-a sound you never forget! Like BEEEEEOOOOOOWWWW.
Now, ships have anti-collision radar, and no need for sounds. So, are foghorns still used?
I’d love to have a doorbell like the ADDAMS FAMILY did (foghorn)-anyone know if you can program the sound into an electronic doorbell?
Ships in New York and Newark bay still sound off in the fog. Waking up in the morning, listening to the deep horn. I moved inland 2 years ago, you just reminded me how much I love and miss the sound.
They still use fog horns.
Fog Horns are alive and well. I hear them all the time I live on the coast of CT. Don’t forget, fog horns are not just for large vessels, they are for small ones as well trying to get to shore, or away from a reef.
I live about 2 miles inland from Mount Hope Bay (in Massachusetts, at the north end of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay). On a calm night, I can hear the fog horns from the bay while standing in my back yard. I’m not completely sure where in the bay they are, but you can most certainly hear them.
They’re still used here in San Diego.
Yeah, on a schooner last summer in Maine I had to take a shift at the foghorn. There was a certain pattern we had to do because as a sailboat we had limited movement. We had a scary moment when a little boat that WASN’T using a foghorn came awfully close to us.
My wife and I are moving to Narragansett Bay - Jamestown - and there is a horn near Ft.Wetheril. Here is a detailed map with all of them [scroll down].
To give people reading an idea of how large one of these fog horns is, there is usually a huge 2-ft thick concrete wall separating the horn from anyone standing around it. Or they are built into an earthen berm so people standing behind it don’t get their ear drums blown.
ETA- Zsofia - this happens a lot where I live power boaters [like myself] can’t hear a sailboat - obviously - if we are going any more than 20-25 knots. That’s why in fog it is proper to idle through it very slowly… The problem is when people from NYC and elsewhere come up to use their “powerboat” and have no idea how to drive it because they only use it once a year - think that they can speed everywhere and anywhere through the harbor and out into the sound. :rolleyes:
Lighthouse and foghorn signals (i.e. the type and frequency of light and noise) are indicated on nautical charts. Here (warning: PDF) is the list of fog signals from the NOAA Office of Coast Survey Nautical Chart Symbols, Abbreviations, and Terms, which is the standard reference for US nautical charts and generally conforms to EU and international symbols. Lighthouse lenses and fog signals are maintained in the United States and territories by the Coast Guard. (Although the ownership and upkeep of many historic lighthouse structures has been transferred to municipal authorities, state parks and recreations agencies, and private non-profit groups, the USCG maintains the actual signal and lens apparatus.) Here (another PDF) on page 39 is a summary of nautical symbols.
Virtually every ocean port I have ever sailed or paddled out of has had some kind of audible signal, and I think the USCG even maintains some signals out of most major Great Lakes ports; essentially, anything considered to be navigable by commercial shipping (greater than 100 tons GT).
Stranger
I heard a foghorn just this afternoon, sat right here at this computer. Which took me by surprise, because it’s been a beautiful clear summer day.
I suppose there must have been some mist down at the mouth of the Tyne.
I can hear one from my house on foggy mornings. I live about a half a mile from a harbor.
I come from Whitby, a bit further down the coast. I was under the impression that foghorns had been decommissioned a few years ago. This partly due to the fact that the Whitby foghorn is now a restaurant belonging to friends of my parents and the horn was removed before they bought it.
Also, we often heard the horn in South Shields, about six miles from my current location, but it hasn’t been heard for years now.
Perhaps it was just a standard ship’s horn you heard - I’ll ask my son in law when I see him (Tees Pilot, formerly Tyne Pilot, formerly ships captain and navigator)
They still sound the ones on the Golden Gate Bridge. Every 20 seconds 5 hours a day in the foggy months.
Most definitely they still exist. It’s my job to install and maintain them.
If you stay out on the beach at Orange Beach, Alabama until the wee hours of the morning, you can hear the foghorn at Perdido pass. Very cool.
These must have been the ones I heard last month while on vacation in San Francisco! Our motel was near the Presidio.
I live within earshot of Sydney harbour. They’re quite common here.
Ah, very possibly (no mariner, I). 
I love this board. I really do. What’s the career path to becoming A Foghorner?
The fixed foghorn at the end of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal used to start moooing (it sounded like a cow about to croak) at the slightest wisp of fog, a frequent occurance in the late spring. You could hear it for 10 miles away, and I’m sure glad I didn’t live any closer. About 20 years ago, the Coast Guard stopped using it, although the foghorn building is still standing. I always assumed it was due to better navigation aids. However, the lighthouse never stopped working.
Then a few days ago, in heavy fog, I heard a ship’s foghorn somewhere in the lake. It continued for a long time, so the ship must have been moving slowly, and it must have been a big ship, as I don’t think many fishing boats carry foghorns. I couldn’t see the ship (it was foggy, duh). So they do exist but appear to be rarely used.
If they ever started up the canal foghorn again, I’m sure it would have a serious effect on all the new, expensive houses that have built up nearby.