First Monday of the month, 12:00 hours. The already traditional luchtalarm test takes place all over The Netherlands, with more than 4000 of these acoustic devices ringing in unison for almost a couple of minutes. It seems the idea is simply to check the system works, but also to refresh the awareness of the population about its existence.
I have been for a while paying attention to this event in different contexts, so now it seemed the perfect timing for a short visit to Binckhorst and listen how the sirens interact with the location.
On my way there, surprisingly I discerned what it seems to be a siren on top the BINK36, one of the most outstanding buildings in the whole area. So I decided to stay around, and as I didn´t have that much time to try to get into the surroundings of the complex, having to give explanations probably to the security guys and so on, I just got into the closest accesible industrial area at the other side of the road.
I made the recording in a piece of still vacant terrain which seems to be used as car depot. It allowed to keep certain distance from the quite busy traffic and work activity around. The recording was made binaurally (with the mics in my ears), so it should work better on headphones. As can be noticed, besides of my efforts, it was quite windy.
Binckhorst 