Measurement and mitigation for impulse noise from Pickleball Courts

Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America, and many municipalities have converted tennis courts for pickleball in the past decade. However, the hard plastic ball and hard racquet yields a high-frequency impulsive noise with energy centered near 1200 Hz which is quite different from the low-frequency modal resonance of a tennis racquet. As a result, pickleball noise tends to result in much greater community annoyance than tennis noise from a similar distance since the human ear is more sensitive in that frequency range. However, the relatively short wavelength of pickleball noise also means that it is more easily obstructed by barriers and absorbed by the atmosphere. This study examines some case studies of pickleball noise mitigation and some general principles that are raised in the diffracted versus obstructed path. In addition, the question of the most appropriate metrics for pickleball sound are considered given the brief duration of pickleball hits.