From: "David VanHorn" <dvanhorn@cedar.net>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Fun with Wog-Tech
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 18:20:08 -0500
Message-ID: <6tcbnk$1vh$1@news.iquest.net>
Need a cheap long-distance mic for your cam-corder? Here's a quick-and-dirty bit of underground wog-tech that's sure to please.
Get yourself over to the nearest hardware store. I went to Lowe's.
Buy a ceiling light shade, the type that's basically a large flat-ish glass dish. Mine has pretty flowers on it. Clear is better (unlikely) and clear plastic would be best. (most unlikely), the larger the better. If anyone finds a source for plastic ones, please let me know.
Get a 3' section of threaded lamp pipe, "1/8-IP" and several matching nuts and washers. Also, from their misc hardware section, a pair of neoprene washers.
Thread a nut onto the rod, about 1' from one end. Then stack a flat washer, a neoprene washer, the glass disk, another neoprene washer, a metal washer, and another nut. Tighten carefully, so that the glass doesn't flop around.
Tape the edges of the glass. If you've got time and inclination, put some sticky foam on the back, or spray it with some of that fast hardening foam-in-a-can. This deadens sound from the back.
Now you want a cardioid mic, as sensitive and noise-cancelling as you can lay hands on; Radio Shack has some decent ones. Duct-tape, or rubber band this to the threaded rod, and slide in and out to focus the sound.
There's a lot more you can do to improve this, but it's a 30 minute <$10 project (excluding the mic itself) and you can make one, use it in a city, and then donate it to goodwill and get on a plane. :)
Pro models go for about $800, with a rather smaller collection area. Mic quality is important, you want something that's rather emphasizing the front, and dropping out the sides and back.
Use: Point and shoot. You can look down the threaded rod to sight in on the sound source you want to record, but if your mic is off center (likely) then you'll have to aim a bit off to the other side to compensate.
Mechanical Issues: You're waving around a 15-18" diameter of brittle glass. Be careful (buy two?) Obviously not suited to close-in work at pickets, but then again, with that much gain, you can be across the street, down the road, and up 10 floors if need be.
Legal issues: Using this to record unsuspecting people is almost certainly illegal. Using this to document a picket, being a public activity in a public place, is almost certainly legal (else how would news crews function)
Place this in your ARSCC manual under the lo-tech-high-tech section, replacing pages 20-21.
From: mowgli@swinginthruthejunglewithouta.net (Fiend of Ron)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Fun with Wog-Tech
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 03:28:38 GMT
Message-ID: <35f9e594.65205731@news.mindspring.com>
"David VanHorn" <dvanhorn@cedar.net> wrote:
Need a cheap long-distance mic for your cam-corder? Here's a quick-and-dirty bit of underground wog-tech that's sure to please.
(snip)
Mechanical Issues: You're waving around a 15-18" diameter of brittle glass. Be careful (buy two?) Obviously not suited to close-in work at pickets, but then again, with that much gain, you can be across the street, down the road, and up 10 floors if need be.Legal issues: Using this to record unsuspecting people is almost certainly illegal. Using this to document a picket, being a public activity in a public place, is almost certainly legal (else how would news crews function)
Place this in your ARSCC manual under the lo-tech-high-tech section, replacing pages 20-21.
(snip)
Here's another, possibly cheaper and easier way to build a LD mike. You'll need a small umbrella, some aluminum foil, a grease pencil, a small flashlight, some duct tape, spray adhesive, bolt cutters and, of course, your mike.
Open the umbrella (a small folding one works best for this). "Wallpaper" the inside of the umbrella (but not the handle) with aluminum foil, trying to keep the wrinkles at a minimum. You can use the spray adhesive (sold in many photo shops and in some hardware stores) to keep the layers sticking to each other. You can also use the duct tape for this purpose, but hold off on using the duct tape until later.
Once you've covered the inside of the umbrella, get your flashlight and grease pencil, and take them and the umbrella to a dark room. Turn on the small flashlight and aim it into the aluminum-covered interior of the umbrella. The light beam should bounce off the aluminum and be reflected back -- in fact, you should be able to see a bright patch somewhere gon the umbrella's pole. That's where you want the business end of your mike to go, so mark it with your grease pencil.
Turn the lights on and get your duct tape and the mike. Place the mike on the umbrella pole, with the receiving end pointing toward the aluminum foil. Use duct tape to secure the mike. If your mike has an on-off switch or if it requires batteries, be sure to account for this as you secure the mike.
If you are so inclined, you can use the bolt cutters to lop off the excess length of umbrella handle. However, if you do this, you'll want to put something on the bare metal end (like maybe a tennis ball?) so you don't risk poking someone with it. Alternatively, you might wish to leave the handle on; it's good for wrapping the mike cord.
Use more duct tape on the inside of the umbrella in order to make it less transparent to sound. Umbrella fabric is pretty transparent, acoustically speaking.
Finally, an optional addition would be to construct some sort of handle for this widget. Someone with greater handyman skills than me could possibly create some sort of pistol-grip or other handle that would make this easy to aim.
I worked in radio many moons ago, and this was a great news-team tool. It's cheap, easy to build, doesn't require much skill, and it is easy to replace if broken.
Cautions as above. Use in good health.
---Fiend
"Handle with care, or I'll bite your fucking hands off. Maybe I'll do it anyway." SP2 With A Bullet (KoX)
From: "David VanHorn" <dvanhorn@cedar.net>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Fun with Wog-Tech
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 11:39:47 -0500
Message-ID: <6te9nr$oni$1@news.iquest.net>
Use more duct tape on the inside of the umbrella in order to make it less transparent to sound. Umbrella fabric is pretty transparent, acoustically speaking.
I was going to try that today, a deeper parabola seems to be better. I was thinking along the lines of one of those plastic unbrellas in hopes that it would be less transparent.
BTW: The Radio Shack 33-3017 Unidirectional mic is on sale for $40, and they carry a windscreen. It's also got, in the box, an XLR to 1/4 inch cable, which I found rather handy. It eats a single AA battery every 1000 hours. Any more efficient, and you could trap thetans with it.
It also has a nice response peak from 300-3000hZ, making it much better at getting voice, and much less better at getting wind noise.
Gather the truth my friends, for the truth shall set them free :)
From: Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine <dave@xemu.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Fun with Wog-Tech
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 20:52:23 +0100
Message-ID: <VoKhk2A3Dt+1EwsR@xemu.demon.co.uk>
In art<6tcbnk$1vh$1@news.iquest.net>, David VanHorn writes:
Need a cheap long-distance mic for your cam-corder? Here's a quick-and-dirty bit of underground wog-tech that's sure to please. Get yourself over to the nearest hardware store. I went to Lowe's.Buy a ceiling light shade, the type that's basically a large flat-ish glass dish. Mine has pretty flowers on it. Clear is better (unlikely) and clear plastic would be best. (most unlikely), the larger the better. If anyone finds a source for plastic ones, please let me know.
I haven't had any practice at this but ...
You would be better with a spun aluminium dish. Ideally a proper parabolic, but you might find one roughly the right shape supplied either for a lampshade or saucepan/casserole lid. You could also look up "metal spinning" in the yellow pages and find someone who does a small cheap parabolic dish. Don't carry fragile stuff like glass around in rough-and-ready fieldwork. There may be people around who RECORD wildlife especially birds (Audubon Society) who know how to make scratch directional gear. Another form of directional pickup is called a "rifle mike"; it relies on two mic elements lined up in a metal tube.
"Fiend's" umbrella reflector is a really neat idea. Best though is go to metal spinners for a true parabolic dish; likely to cost only about $50.00 and well worth it. I could easily get hold of these in Britain - but you probably wouldn't like the shipping charges which would cost more than the product :-<
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P | Woof Woof, Glug Glug ||____________|| 0 | P
O | Who Drowned the Judge's Dog? | . . . . . . . '----. 0 | O
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L |{a href="news:alt.religion.scientology"}{/a}_____________|/_______| L
and{a href="http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/clam/lynx/q0.html"}{/a}XemuSP4(:)
From: Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine <dave@xemu.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Fun with Wog-Tech
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 20:06:16 +0100
Message-ID: <vjsfGDBokW$1Ewy1@xemu.demon.co.uk>
In article <VoKhk2A3Dt+1EwsR@xemu.demon.co.uk>, Dave Bird writes:
In art<6tcbnk$1vh$1@news.iquest.net>, David VanHorn writes:>Need a cheap long-distance mic for your cam-corder? Here's a
>quick-and-dirty bit of underground wog-tech that's sure to please.
>Get yourself over to the nearest hardware store. I went to Lowe's.>Buy a ceiling light shade, the type that's basically a large flat-ish glass
>dish. Mine has pretty flowers on it. Clear is better (unlikely) and clear
>plastic would be best. (most unlikely), the larger the better. If anyone
>finds a source for plastic ones, please let me know.I haven't had any practice at this but ...
You would be better with a spun aluminium dish. Ideally a proper parabolic, but you might find one roughly the right shape supplied either for a lampshade or saucepan/casserole lid. You could also look up "metal spinning" in the yellow pages and find someone who does a small cheap parabolic dish.
I asked a friend about this and he said he'd get back with a price.
However, as he pointed out, any supplier of SATELLITE TV DISHES can probably supply you with a few blank dishes (that is, without the microwave receiving aerial mounted on them) and you can mount microphones on them for yourself.
|~/ |~/
~~|;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;'^';-._.-;||';-._.-;'^';||_.-;'^'0-|~~
P | Woof Woof, Glug Glug ||____________|| 0 | P
O | Who Drowned the Judge's Dog? | . . . . . . . '----. 0 | O
O | answers on *---|_______________ @__o0 | O
L |{a href="news:alt.religion.scientology"}{/a}_____________|/_______| L
and{a href="http://www.xemu.demon.co.uk/clam/lynx/q0.html"}{/a}XemuSP4(:)
From: ted@ibexbsc.com (Ted)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Re: Re: Fun with Wog-Tech
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 21:10:01 GMT
Message-ID: <35fdde73.89697587@enews.newsguy.com>
"David VanHorn" <dvanhorn@cedar.net> wrote:
>Use more duct tape on the inside of the umbrella in order to make it
>less transparent to sound. Umbrella fabric is pretty transparent,
>acoustically speaking.I was going to try that today, a deeper parabola seems to be better. I was thinking along the lines of one of those plastic unbrellas in hopes that it would be less transparent.
BTW: The Radio Shack 33-3017 Unidirectional mic is on sale for $40, and they carry a windscreen. It's also got, in the box, an XLR to 1/4 inch cable, which I found rather handy. It eats a single AA battery every 1000 hours. Any more efficient, and you could trap thetans with it.
It also has a nice response peak from 300-3000 Hz, making it much better at getting voice, and much less better at getting wind noise.
Gather the truth my friends, for the truth shall set them free :)
Something that might be handy for coordinating between several camcorder operators is a set of hands-free walkie-talkie headsets.
Johnson Smith, Company (1-914-747-2356) has a catalog ("Things You Never Knew Existed ...") offering these for 27.97 each; 600 ft range. For about twice the price, I think you can get 900 Mhz units with a one mile range, and perhaps even an encrypted signal between units.
They also have a couple of cool "Alien" Halloween masks (Mars Attack, generic "grey", and more "twisted" alien morphs); a pretty cool "Pinhead" mask; and a very cool "Butt-Face" mask -- two cheeks, butt crack, and cool sunglasses -- now everyone can look like (*)! Don't forget the portable voice changer with boom mike -- wear it under a mask for $20 -- so you can sound like Xenu-growling, Xenu-squeeking, or Xenu-Colossus the extra-galactic robot.
God! Halloween can be so great when you're sorta an adult! Of course, I'll be working and have no reason to buy any of that stuff, this year.
--
Ted (ted@ibexbsc.com)