Thunderstorm microphone

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A thunderstorm microphone (also known as an emergency microphone ) is a microphone that used to be used by transmitter staff to make announcements via the transmitter if, for example, the transmitter was switched off due to a thunderstorm or technical maintenance work. For this purpose it was connected to the low frequency input of the transmitter.

During the raid on the station in Gliwice , the station's thunderstorm microphone was used to simulate an occupation of the station by Poland, which was initially used as a further pretext for the attack on Poland that led to the start of the Second World War .

Todays situation

In principle, such a device can also be provided in modern radio transmitters for all frequency bands and transmission powers . However, this is no longer necessarily sensible today, as many transmitter systems are monitored remotely. Rather, today, when a program is broadcast over several transmitters, the listeners of the program are informed that a transmitter in the chain will be switched off. However, specific announcements can also be made to a specific transmitter via its modulation line.

In early 2013, a fire at Telekom in Siegen resulted in a widespread failure of telephone, cell phone and data connections in the Siegen area, which also affected the WDR in the Siegen studio. Although the radio and television program could be supplied by the Langenberg transmitter , the WDR could not send the local radio news for the region and the necessary information for the population. Only when a team from WDR drove to the Nordhelle transmitter with an analogue tape and microphone could they broadcast the local news from there using an improvised microphone.

literature

  • Gerd Igel: On the way on three continents , part 3: War in East and West , Verlag Lulu, page 47, ISBN 9783938240038
  • Henryk Waniek: Acoustic Memory and Second World War , Volume 126, Thoughts on the attack on the Gleiwitz transmitter , Verlag V&R unipress GmbH (2011), Page 116, ISBN 9783899715859
  • Peter Przybylski: Perpetrators next to Hitler - events, facts, connections , Brandenburgisches Verlag-Haus (1990), page 279, ISBN 9783327009871
  • Harry Schulze-Wilde: The Reich Chancellery 1933-1945 , Societäts-Verlag (1966), page 464

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