I finished work and headed home with my suitcase, golf bag and a wok.
I had brought the wok with me as it was all rusted and past its usefulness as a cooking utensil, but not as a parabolic device.
I headed to the British library to read the books I had ordered on Sound Mirrors. Whilst walking back to my reading table I bumped into Will, an English lecturer (I believe) and friend of a friend that Id had dinner with on Sunday. The world is an increasingly small place, it would seem.
The books were helpful, in as much as they allowed me to see and read about the microphone systems used (primitive) and the process of acoustic ranging as it was developed, from the beginning (small shafts dug in the ground and piano wires) to the latterly vast 20m mirrors of Dungeoness. Funnels, stethoscopes and arrangements of rubber tubing were used to listen with, until early microphones were employed and this then brought the development of that particular instrument forward considerably in partnership with the mirrors. Mirrors were first made out of chalk faces (Kent), then wood and finally concrete.
The following day was spent in the studio building a home made parabolic mic stand and doing some experimentation with sound ranging. I will leave the pictures to do the talking, except to say that I may need to purchase a second mic that offers something a little different in case the current one is not up to the job
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