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Old 14th Oct 2019, 3:34 pm   #21
Brigham
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Default Re: The Cold War spy technology which we all use - Theremin

Not 'movies' in the cinema sense, but the music for Yorkshire Television's 'Flambards' contains an Ondes Martenot.
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Old 15th Oct 2019, 5:59 pm   #22
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Default Re: The Cold War spy technology which we all use - Theremin

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrewausfa View Post
I bought a really interesting book about the subject a few months ago, essentially a history of the CIA's Office of Technical Services, 'Spycraft' by Melton, Schlesinger and Wallace. It goes into some detail (but not too technical unfortunately for us) about the items used during the cold war and how they were inserted into walls, rats, tables etc etc. The transition from valves to transistors was the big game changer evidently. I really recommend it.

Andrew

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spycraft-H-...=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Probably the best news magazine on US TV is CBS' 60 Minutes, featured a segment on this issue proving the some sort of sub-sonic signal in the microwave regain, that would affect the US citizens working in the countries of Cuba, China and the Soviet Union. Many times it was irreversible brain damage. It affected them when they were in their apartment and in their office.
Program aired 1 Sept 2019. I have a chip recording of it.
Dave, USradcoll1, viewing the program over 50 years.
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Old 15th Oct 2019, 7:17 pm   #23
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Default Re: The Cold War spy technology which we all use - Theremin

The C4 documentary 'Theremin - An Electronic Oddyssey' references the theremin-glinksy biography and is available on DVD. It also features an interview with a rather exciteable Brian Wilson (beach boys) explaining how he wanted the theremin on Good Vibrations, and how it had to be redesigned (the electro-theremin) so they could hit the notes repeatably...always a band striving for perfection. This instrument is similar in some ways to the ondes martenot in that it has a printed scale for the notes on an otherwise sliding-scale oscillator.

At the risk of straying off topic, the ondes martenot was used on Barry Gray's theme for Captain Scarlet...though it sounds just like a theremin..or musical saw!
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Old 16th Oct 2019, 1:47 am   #24
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: The Cold War spy technology which we all use - Theremin

Another "unworldly" sounding, and rare instrument is the "Glass Harmonica".
It doesn't have much of a repertoire, but it includes 'The Aquarium' from Saint-Saƫns Carnival Of The Animals, according to the composers original score.

Its inventor was none other than Benjamin Franklin.
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Old 16th Oct 2019, 2:56 am   #25
dave walsh
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Default Re: The Cold War spy technology which we all use - Theremin

Just prior to recording the 1963 film of Edna O'briens book last night "The Girl With Green Eyes" from Talking Pictures [Ch 81 Freeview] at 9pm, I warmed up the VCR with a couple of minutes from Blaze [Ch63] re Storage Wars which included an excitable young woman who found a 1995 Theremin and played it along with her expert valuer who had an original one from the 1920's. Hers was worth only $300 due to so many being made [he said] but she was [dimly] happy either way in the Los Angeles Wonderland. Just last weekend the Broad Sheets carried stories re "Alexa" [AKA "The Thing"] waking up and asking questions, commenting on something at random or regurgitating information spontaneously to startled "customers". It's like that over friendly person you might meet in a bar

Dave W

Blaze is good for alternative science Tesla etc /history but is too American in the sense that they have to repeat everything each time which [coupled with the ads] is very tedious. 3 or more episodes of Oak Island could be done in one
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"Stop Dave-Please Stop" Hal '2001 A Space Odyssey' 1968!

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