Bells of Altar

I had to call my brother (he's, what?, 12 years older than me) and ask him about this, but the local Catholic church/high school where we grew up, it was about .75 miles away, or maybe a mile.  But every day at select times, a tape recording of bells would go off and waft through the neighborhood entier.  I remember this, and I'm sure it went on at least until I was in high school.  Brother says that it was a recording of bells from the Vatican, and that they had huge speakers to blast this out.  Thing is, I can't remember (thank you, demon alcohol) ever being close to the bell site as this tape rolled; I just want to know how insanely loud it must have been across the street, say.

My whole neighborhood was mostly Catholics and I can truthfully say that I often felt left out, what with the shiny-seeming papist kids going to CCD and whatnot.  Also, I remember being bodily tossed in a wet patch of yard (collected rainwater) by JohnPaul M_______ (identical twins, both referred to by the other kids as a unit) and the B_______s.