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Tuesday 1 February 2011

UFO detector

Here is a schematic diagram of a UFO detector from the September/October 1968 issue of Flying Saucer Review (which I purchased a few years ago for considerably more than the "five shillings" cover price). Actually it's a magnetic field detector, but apparently UFOs do generate really big magnetic fields. The article implies a value of 1 gauss (about twice the Earth's magnetic field) at a slant range of  1 to 3 miles from "a small craft".

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boffins were also trying to detect UFOs through the television set around this time. There's an advert for these circuit diagrams (reproduced from the March 1971 issue of the British 'Practical Wireless' magazine) on the ORB Editions website (article 24 SEP 09) here: http://www.okok.org.uk/News/News2010-2008/newspage2010_2008.htm

Andrew May said...

Interesting, thanks (the Blogger software thought your comment was spam, but I rescued it!)

Practical Wireless was a highly reputable journal - my first appearance in print was a very short letter they printed in September 1973 (age 15)!

nick said...

It won't work as published - even if you think it is based on sound scientific principles!

TR4 is inverted and of course no current will flow through it if wired like this! Swap the collector and emitter around. This is confirmed in FSR Vol 15 No 4 July/August 1969 p20 in Mailbag!

Now then, where are you going to find that 10k ohm pick-up coil...

Regards,

Nick

Andrew May said...

Nick - Well spotted: I'm glad someone is paying attention!

NatalieInStereo said...

Well, could you use a guitar pickup?

Andrew May said...

Excellent suggestion, Natalie! When I first saw your comment (bear in mind it's over 3 years since the original post) I wasn't sure what you were talking about, but then I reread the comment thread and realized you were answering Nick's question "Where are you going to find that 10k ohm pick-up coil?" You're probably right that a guitar pickup would do the job... assuming anyone really does want to make a 1960s-era UFO detector!

Unknown said...

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Jan said...

Has no one updated this circuit yet with a much more modern, sensitive design?

It's over 40 years old!