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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Vintage Photographs of Wacky Acoustic Radar

As a military air defense tool, passive acoustic location was used from mid-World War I to the early years of World War II to detect enemy aircraft by picking up the noise of their engines. It was rendered obsolete before and during World War II by the introduction of radar, which was far more effective (but interceptable). Acoustic techniques had the advantage that they could 'see' around corners and over hills, due to sound refraction. [via wiki]



The Dutch personal locator ~ 1930s





A two-horn system at Bolling Field, USA, in 1921.The building in the background is the Army War College at Fort McNair.


Czech one man aircraft locator

Aircraft Detection before Radar
Aircraft Detection before Radar
Aircraft Detection before Radar
Aircraft Detection before Radar



Russian anti-aircraft gunners with a device for "listening" to the sky.
Aircraft Detection before Radar
Aircraft Detection before Radar
1930's French locator.


Acoustic marine locator. Jean Auscher from France


Emperor Hirohito inspecting some impressive “war tubas” in the 1930s. 


The experiments of the Rev J M Bacon ~ 1898.



Dutch personal horns ~1930s




Aircraft Detection before Radar
Aircraft Detection before Radar
This guy sure likes using this crazy contraption

These images remind me, for some reason, of the Whisper 2000 commercials:

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