# The forerunner of radar



## gumbyk (May 19, 2013)

I was watching a British program the other day, and it had a bit about the listening mirrors at Dungeness:

Quite interesting: Denge sound mirrors « Sound Mirrors

I would have thought wind noise would have rendered them useless, but obviously not.


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## model299 (May 20, 2013)

More information on the technology, with an Entry about the Dungeness mirrors at the bottom. Apparently, they represented the zenith of the idea.

Acoustic Radar.


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## nuuumannn (May 20, 2013)

Fascinating stuff, thankfully for the likes of Watson-Watt and Tizard, there was no need to put these to use in anger.


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## nincomp (May 21, 2013)

model299 said:


> More information on the technology, with an Entry about the Dungeness mirrors at the bottom. Apparently, they represented the zenith of the idea.
> 
> Acoustic Radar.



I cannot get the link to work. Is anyone else having this problem?

Before I had learned about the acoustic mirrors in England, I had seen and used a smaller version at a local Science Museum. The Museum has a couple of acoustic mirrors set up on opposite sides of a large room. When one person stands at the right place and whispers into one of the mirrors, the person at the other can hear the voice with amazing clarity, as long as they are in the correct spot. If the listener moves just a few inches out of position, he/she can hear nothing. Oh, and the same things happens if the listener move a few centimeters out of position. The acoustic mirrors apparently do not discriminate against the metric system.


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## model299 (May 21, 2013)

That's odd. I just tried my own link and it worked fine.

Here is is without the http prefix. type in the www-dot, then a copy/paste and see what happens.


aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/ear/ear.htm


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## nincomp (May 22, 2013)

The link works for me today. Thanks.
I have seen problems like this before, but I was never able to determine whether it was the fault of my ISP or whether it was a temporary glitch at the other end. It occurs most often near midnight EST, which is when hardware and software upgrades tend to happen as well as when backups are made. Either that or I have angered the Internet Gods... again.

Well, whatever the trouble was, the link words for me now.


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## Readie (May 22, 2013)

Yes, quite fascinating.Sound and its uses is quite a topic.
They still exist.

Acoustic mirror - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## stona (May 22, 2013)

In a demonstration put on for Dowding and others the system failed to identify a "hostile" aircraft but did give a good amplification of the sounds of a passing milkman and his horse.

Cheers

Steve


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## davebender (May 22, 2013)

Sound ranging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Artillery sound ranging was common during both world wars. I suspect aircraft detection by sound was a further development of the artillery equipment.


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## Marcel (May 23, 2013)

nuuumannn said:


> Fascinating stuff, thankfully for the likes of Watson-Watt and Tizard, there was no need to put these to use in anger.


we did use them here in the Netherlands in ww2


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## razor1uk (Jul 12, 2013)

Their was a German man in 1911/1912 who spent many years with the earliest electronics, and he accidently invented for all apparent purposes, the first working equivalent to radar, a radiowave oscillation detector of near shipping objects - it was a proposed safety aid that could detect ships large un-metalic objects within a certain range to ring a warning bell -to alert the lookouts and officer crew, it could spot the newer metal hulls in any condition and tall ships at a slight lesser range, but it gave no real indication of direction, just the induction feedback of something approaching - in rough sea states it's range was lessened depending upon the depth of the wave troughs.

But Marconni, Siemens and others big electo industrialist, including shipping companies, ignored him saying that the new radio telecommunications would be much safer so superseded his simple box of tricks - unfortunately I cannot remember his name, last name began with a Pf methinks. When his patents lasped due to radio comms killing his cheaper, working practical equipment, the other companies snapped his ideas up and he eventually died a very poor man.

His work was forgotten, lost and ignored, even as far as I know by the Germans 20 - 30 years later too, didn't really know him and what he did, and we English, like to believe only we invented radar. We didn't, we weren't the first or last, but we apparently were the 1st 'Great powers' to conduct military trails and investigations that led to a hugely secret program.

Like the establishment lies about 'Cats Eyes' Cunningham and carrots, which he disliked intensely too, because it wasn't him or carrots (they don't do anything for eyesight percé, but do encourage gardening and childrens eating of vegetables in wartime conditions) but him and his AI Operator using Aerial Intercept electronics (aka radar) which couldn't be disclosed as a military secret then.


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## cherry blossom (Jul 13, 2013)

razor1uk said:


> Their was a German man in 1911/1912 who spent many years with the earliest electronics, and he accidently invented for all apparent purposes, the first working equivalent to radar, a radiowave oscillation detector of near shipping objects - it was a proposed safety aid that could detect ships large un-metalic objects within a certain range to ring a warning bell -to alert the lookouts and officer crew, it could spot the newer metal hulls in any condition and tall ships at a slight lesser range, but it gave no real indication of direction, just the induction feedback of something approaching - in rough sea states it's range was lessened depending upon the depth of the wave troughs.
> 
> But Marconni, Siemens and others big electo industrialist, including shipping companies, ignored him saying that the new radio telecommunications would be much safer so superseded his simple box of tricks - unfortunately I cannot remember his name, last name began with a Pf methinks. When his patents lasped due to radio comms killing his cheaper, working practical equipment, the other companies snapped his ideas up and he eventually died a very poor man.
> 
> ...


The German inventor was Christian Hülsmeyer who tested the first potentially useful radar in 1904 Christian Hülsmeyer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. There was a slightly latter proposal by Richard Scherl and Hans Dominik, who sent details to the Imperial German Navy in February 1916, but the suggestions rejected as 'not being importance to the war effort' Technic - German Naval Radar - Part 1, Introduction. 

The idea of measuring range seems to trace back to Heinrich Loewy's 1912 patent Patent US1045575 - HEINRICH LOWY - Google Patents but G Breit and M A Tuve also used short pulses of radio waves to determine the height of the ionosphere in the Twenties http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/July2000/pdf/July2000p28-43.pdf.

However, the critical difference in the Thirties was that electronics developed for the television industry made it much easier to make pulsed radars (I think that the French radar on the Normandie in 1935 histoire du radar, les faits was CW). Thus radars were independently developed in several countries and British, German and American radars were put into production before those countries found out about other countries work Technical and Military Imperatives: A Radar History of World War 2 - L Brown - Google Books.


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## Marcel (Jul 13, 2013)

We've got a nice set in our army museum. We used them as well in 1940, although we also employed some early radar devices already in 1940 as well.


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