Sound mirrors

Books mentioning the northeast and Joss Gap

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Clive Kidd gets in touch to say that sound mirrors get several mentions in The Baby Killers – German Air Raids on Britain in the First World War by Thomas Fegan, (Leo Cooper, 2003 ISBN 0-85052-893-3). pp153-4 Boulby and Redcar, pp176-7 Sunderland and p116 Kilnsea, briefly outlining a system of quadrants for plotting.

EW Sockett in Tyne Tees Defended:1 in World War 1 1914-18 RNAS RFC RAAF (ISBN 0952 8217 02) gives maps and further details of three north-east coast mirrors and WW1 observer lines. Also gets a write up in in T/T Defended II 1914-1941 ISBN 0-952-8217-1-0. He also gives lots of references to other articles he has written on Tyne Tees Defences, mainly in the Yorkshire Antiquites Journal.

Prof R W F Burns gives them a small bit in his IEE Hist of Tech paper on the detection and loction of aircraft and refers to a paper in Kew PRO “report 87 Preliminary report on Joss Gap Station of the acoustical section SEE W S Tucker 22 Sep 1920 AVIA 23/84 PRO Kew. Also has a ref to “Location of a/c by sound Journal of the American physical Society Vol XiV N02 1919 PP166-7.

Sound mirror updates

Posted on by Andrew Grantham

Interest in acoustic mirrors continues to grow. Among a backlog of e-mails, I’ve been told that

  • There are a pair of acoustic mirrors at the excellent Snibston Discovery Park in Leicestershire. Anyone know more?
  • The Aeroplane monthly published a story on sound mirrors sometime in
    the 1970s
  • An email from RAF Boulmer says they have been discussing sound mirrors in training (hopefully along with more recent technology!).
  • The CD booklet for the 2004 album We Pray The Brooze by The Fujii uses an image of a sound mirror.
  • But most excitingly, a new sculpture is being planned for construction by the River Witham about 2 miles east of Lincoln, including a concrete listening device.