Dr Westerhaus alerts us to the Museum of Retro Technology and in particular this gallery of sound mirrors and acoustic location devices, used to detect enemy aircraft prior to the development of radar.
Related, and a little more discreet: Concealed hearing devices of the 19th century, including the amplifying vase and the acoustic beard.
Hilarious. It’s like a Terry Gilliam cartoon.
They carried on using visual and audio detection after radar.
1. In the UK the stations were on the coast which meant that inland the planes had to be tracked using old methods. Same was true elsewhere
2. Radar could be jammed with Window, so you needed a backup.
If you think about it the hydrophone is fundamentally the same idea (albeit in water a better medium). That’s still used.
My main interest in this was triggered by the idea of ‘handy big-ears’ for various uses that could be available commercially – it appears someone has done just that:
http://www.inewidea.com/index.php?s=matthias
I want the bright red batphones. For clubbing. 😀
And of further interest, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Denge, the Kent ‘acoustic mirror array’, with some excellent photos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denge
Thanks David (and Dr W). I’d never heard of these things before.
I weren’t dropping no eaves Mr Gandalf sir.
Airphonic listening posts were all the rage once. The technology was quite sophisticated and reasonably effective. The Italians built a chain of 13 listening posts around their fleet anchorage at Taranto in the 1930’s. These posts actually detected British reconnaissance aircraft taking station outside the harbor in advance of the strike force that attacked the Italian battle fleet at anchor on the night of November 11, 1940. Unfortunately for the Italians they had not integrated their air defense systems very well. Their anti-aircraft units and pursuit pilots were not equipped or trained to operate effectively during periods of limited visibility. That night attack was a pretty gutsy move by the RN.
Like most historians, I’m filled with useless bits of information….