Leon Theremin Changed Spying FOREVER with this 1940s invention!

[@bigjtq9176]

Great! You are the first one I've seen on KZbin that got most of this story right. Since we are Spy Museum, we have of course got most of the details however, I have been disappointed that not even the International Spy Museum have the details correct. For example, I could not for my life understand claim that a group of young pioneer should travel to Moscow and hand over the gift on the 4th of August when Harriman the same year had restarted the tradition with a "open Legation" (not Embassy, this word came in use 1947 if I remember correctly), receiving gifts from people in Moscow. But as you stated, the Seal was handed over during the Yalta conferences. As a fun fact from the Beria archives, Beria had been mapping Harrimans interests and weaknesses and discovered that the only thing that would work was fine wood carvings with exquisite materials, hence the Seal was made with Rosewood, Ebony etcetera. Another fun fact, according to witnesses at the time, during the rehearsals for the visit by the Ambassadors, one of the "pioneers" that should hand over the Seal (and they weren't NKVD operators but young veterans) was discovered to have a tattoo showing under his knee of his short pioneer pants with the inscription, "These legs have walked all over Europe" (эти ноги прошлись по всей Европе) and was therefore quickly replaced. True or not, I find it funny. I will start to follow your channel and look forward to your next video about Theremin. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me at [e-mail] Rgds Johan Ohgren Curator Swedish Spy Museum

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I tried very hard to gather the information and verify it form original documents, not just retelling the stories from other sources. I think I mistranslated some of the Russian notes about WHY they wanted the plaque to be made from a mixture of fine woods and rare materials, so I missed that out. The detail about Beria researching Harriman's foibles explains that extremely well, many thanks for illuminating that. None of the analysis reports mention the actual material being made up of more than one type of wood, but then the folks in the Naval Labs and CIA/FBI were probably not specialists in the microstructure of timber pores for phytological examination and species identification. I had to trust the Yalta conference notes about the gaps where Harriman, Clark-Kerr and Berezhkov were missing from the meeting minutes, and that did seem to tie up well. I was disappointed not to find a copy of the invitation, but my version at 03:24 is probably close enough! Clark-Kerr seems to have been great friends with Messrs Burgess and Maclean and that rather spoiled his later career. I wonder if he DID get a gift as well as Harriman? I didn't believe the notes about the "two battalions of NKVD fighters" in the translations and I couldn't find any original documents in Russian to check, but them being young veterans does make a great deal more sense. Super story about the tattoo! I chose to say "Embassy" to avoid any confusion, although I messed up at one point referring to Spaso House as the Embassy. I think the US used the name "Chancery", certainly in some of the texts about the GUNMAN project with that fantastic IBM Selectric typewriter "modification". I used to teach typing and wordprocessing and had some old Selectric golfball typewriters. Many MANY years ago I worked at Bletchley Park for a while in 1975/76, but it was just a boring and rather run-down Post Office Telecommunications training and conference centre. We had no idea about the history of the place. There was a field of short telegraph poles used for climbing training. I'm making some more of these devices and I'm cutting one in half to repeat the measurements by the FBI labs in 1955 to determine the actual capacitance of the membrane to resonator gap. I think they used a Boonton 160-A Q-meter, as the 260 was perhaps not in general use by then. The four items I lack information on are: 1) a clear photo of the end face of the resonator showing the groove dimensions and pattern 2) a definitive statement about the material of the membrane. A 7 micrometre nickel foil with a few micrometres of silver plating would have rather poor conductivity at 950 MHz, it would really need 10-12 micrometres of silver to get a really high Q-factor in the cavity. Other sources say 75 micrometres, but that seems too thick. I used 10 micrometre copper and stretched it radially into the plastic deformation zone, then tensioned it elastically, but despite careful polishing of the radiused edge of the cavity and making a special tentioning spanner, I don't think I managed to get the tension radially symmetric as there were still some resonances around 800 Hz 3) clear photos of how the membrane was fixed to the bronze threaded ring. I wondered if it was a two-part ring, pressed together. I tried soldering it using several different techniques and made another membrane using a wider mount with cyanoacrylate glue to see if I could get better quality. 4) clear photo showing if the tuning peg holes in the rear of the #11 bug from Spaso House were drilled right through into the cavity area. I made some with shallow holes that only went 0.6 mm deep, but it would be good to see high-res images of the real resonator to confirm. Some of the photocopied photos might have been good enough, but the NSA and DoD archives couldn't locate them and said that the whereabouts of the original resonator is unknown. This whole project wouldn't have been possible without the initial contact from Heather Parsons at the Radio Society of Great Britain, to whom I'm extremely grateful

[@arthurdent8091]

Top notch reporting. I eagerly wait for your next update on this project.

[@RandomRetr0]

The ISM get a lot of things wrong, full stop. Any time you get us A****cans in the mix, shortcuts will be taken, and "close enough" is considered "right"

[@joshuahulett6804]

fool your friends to fool your enemies. bad information is good information.

[@jimsvideos7201]

The fact that they accepted the gift and hung it up without even taking a radiograph is simply astonishing.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I think they did some basic checks, but it was very early in the history of technical security countermeasures. I don't know if they had access to an X-ray machine or metal detector. Finding no wires and hearing no signals from the plaque, they probably guessed it was safe and innocuous. Harriman was pretty much a soft target.

[@flatfingertuning727]

I wonder if the British were aware of any possible way of designing a voice transmitter which didn't require batteries or a mains connection. This video is the first I've heard of any such transmitters having been used anyplace prior to the invention of transistors. Prior to seeing this video, the best I would have expected anyone to be able to do in that era would have been to use a battery-powered transmitter with a clockwork mechanism to turn it on when it was expected to be useful.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@flatfingertuning727 SATYR and other systems were probably initiated by this one being found. The versions using pulsed signals were interesting as well, and much simpler to get working. They had good rectifier diodes and acorn tubes that worked up at 1.4 GHz or so that had been around since the 1930s. It was a fascinating time in the development of covert surveillance

[@MMOchAForPrez]

I'm sure we could all imagine the OSS/CIA mandating that nobody outside the agency know for 100% certain is spying was happening between global powers. And especially between "friendly" nations. Don't let them know that we know they're spying on us so that we can find out more about their current capabilities. Don't let the public know, because they'll become concerned. Not only concerned about spying, also wondering if their country is doing the same to other countries they might consider allies.

[@evlkenevl2721]

I'm surprised they didn't go as far as disassembling the plaque. The fact that it had binding around the edge seems like it should have raised some red flags.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Well, Project Swordfish is now public knowledge! This is Episode 1 of a series of about six videos in the Great Seal Bug playlist. I'm using a new Shure SM7B microphone, which I think is sounding OK. I was a little hoarse from too much talking. This is the first "proper" video I've made using DaVinci Resolve Studio as my non-linear editing tool. This tale has been told before, but I hope I've managed to avoid any of the absolute twaddle and misinformation that surrounds anything about espionage. Future episodes will cover the very deep tech and science about how the Bug works, and show the detail of the machining and the electromagnetic and mechanical simulations. The fascinating story of the showbiz celeb who designed the Bug while incarcerated in a Sharaska, and where he got the ideas from, will be in the next episode of this series. I was on BBC2 TV here in the UK and a lot of folks watched it but of course nobody knew what I looked like, so nobody found my channel. The BBC didn't add me into the credits either, and also failed to credit Heather at the Radio Society of Great Britain, who passed their initial query on to me. The whole project has eaten 300+ hours of my life over the last 12 months, but it's been a fantastic experience.

[@danielmclellan7762]

You sound great, sensei

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@danielmclellan7762 Microphones and DaVinci Fairlight can do wonders!

[@stevewilliams2498]

Sorry but I do think Amy should have been the front man. (So to speak) We would all have recognised you then. 😎

[@giusepperana6354]

Pathetic of them to not credit you. Unbelievable.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@giusepperana6354 I should have asked for a credit I guess

[@andrewdoherty737]

I had an inkling of how it might have worked, but then thought 'but that wouldn't be enough signal' Thinking back to my childhood reminded me of crystal radios and the amazing signal strength that they produced. Love the way you explain the basic workings, how you 'tuned out' the resonance and the joy of getting it to finally work. Now looking forward to the next episode! (subscribed!)

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

There is an academic paper where the authors decided it was impossibly hard to make this work because of all the reflections and leak-through of the transmit signal. They then proved that it was a third harmonic system because there was a resonance around 1.8 GHz, but postulated it was contact effects. The problem with that is that the contact at the threads was silver to silver, and the capacitance across the threads had an extremely low impedance, especially at 1.8 GHz. I managed 78dB isolation in my lab setup at home and even at the BBC, we managed over 70dB with two hours of careful nulling. Using a homodyne approach, the level of signal from the transmitter wouldn't be too much of a problem, and siting the transmit and receive setups orthogonally and in separate buildings, possibly looking in through different windows at Spaso House, would add further isolation. Actually making and testing the things is a lot more revealing than modelling and theory.

[@embers_falling]

The fact that BBC just casually asked the NSA and got the documents that fast is astounding

[@SineEyed]

The intelligence agencies of the US, England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have all agreed to freely share information they've gathered..

[@theboredtrucker3898]

@@SineEyed Sure they have. Thats why we have all the JFK files.

[@ClassWarMatrix]

Lol it's not clout , they are just funded by the same banking cartels. Euro-Anglo financial monopolists control both US and UK governments. Of course the propaganda arm of the globalist system gets their back scratched by the intelligence arm

[@Orbis92]

I never heart of this "story" and didn't know passives bug could be "that simple". I feel like there is none better to tell this story and really explain the workings of the bug than you :) Thanks a lot

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I promise to get the deep technical video out soon, lots of van de Waals, Molecular radii, acoustics, grain boundaries, electric field skin depth, RF conductivity, coaxial line surge impedance, modulation, Q factor, homodyne receivers, antenna theory and Maxwell's equations, plus some electrochemistry and a lot of experimental work. Then a vid about the dimensions and the tolerances and detailed machining and metrology. Fun all the way!

[@trevorhaddox6884]

You can stick a tiny mirror or prism to a window and fire a laser at it these days.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@trevorhaddox6884 indeed, and Termen almost did that with Buran and IR beams of course back in the 40s. It's amazing what will act as a microphone. Aircon ducts are the classic of course. I have some surface mount capacitors that are very microphonic. Not ideal in a phase-locked loop obviously!

[@mattholden5]

This was such a fun deep dive into a history lesson most people know, but only anecdotally. I love watching your shop ramblings and Amye berating your mistakes as well, but this is something very different.... Concise science summary, detailed history, some very interesting math required to make the replica, and lessons learned through your own journey. I'm looking forward to the next chapter. Thanks for sharing!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@heyboyer]

I was under the impression that "The Thing" was designed by Leon Theremin (Lev Termin) who was an electrical engineer working for the Soviets at the time. Theremin was also the designer of the Theremin instrument and originally had a studio and research lab in New York City before suddenly leaving the US and returning to Moscow in the 1930s.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Indeed

[@sundhaug92]

I guess in that regard the music from a theremin would be fitting to test the device

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@sundhaug92 Haha, yes, that would be an excellent idea. We had a modern Theremin in the BBC Council Chamber, it would have been cool to use it.

[@YTPartyTonight]

I saw this video and immediately wondered the same, having seen a fascinating documentary about Theremin back in the early/mid 1990s. "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey"

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@YTPartyTonight I've never seen it but many folks have spoken highly of the film

[@waynesmith6417]

I'm 72 and I read that mag about the bug when I was a teenager. All I remember is that a microwave transmitter energized a capacitor microphone and rebroadcast the audio by a resonance out the antenna. It's been a few days. Thank you for making this video. I enjoyed every bit of it.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I think I first heard about it in 1970, but I'm a mere stripling youth aged 64! I'll be doing some deep dives into the Physics of how it actually works in some upcoming vids. Glad you enjoyed it, I had huge fun with this project

[@waynesmith6417]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves I look forward to the video. It was a time when everyone wanted to have a trick circuit. I made an FM crystal set with no external power. And a transistor amplifier for crystal AM radio that ran off of another crystal set used to generate the power for the transistor. I tried to bounce a laser off of a window glass and pick up the audio, but had no success. Ah the good old days.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@waynesmith6417 I think these days with the amount of RF signals around and some extreme wideband antennas and detectors, it ought to be feasible to make an array and sum the output voltages, storing them in some low leakage caps and making a significant amount of power, perhaps enough to run an ultra-low consumption microcontroller chip in burst data transmission mode. I'm currently thinking about the GUNMAN project with those IBM Selectric typewriters. Very nice. However, I have a zillion other projects to complete and a lecture to write, so fun will have to wait.

[@keitha.9788]

Wayne Smith -- I'm just like you - now 72. I remember hearing the basics of this story as a teenager. Now retired, electronics engineer, and in my early career worked as a Microwave Transmission Engineer with a First Class Commercial FCC License - Designing/implementing point to point microwave communications systems. Considering my engineering background, absolutely fascinating spy story.....

[@waynesmith6417]

@@keitha.9788 Hi Keith. I remember the movie Goldfinger and the transmitter put in Goldfinger's car. In the book, James Bond knew the thing was working because he saw the 'glow of the tubes'. I still have my RCA tube manual. I also remember the first, at least one of the first, transistors that a normal human could buy. The CK722 and CK723. They were in a steel can with a glass base, and they rusted. I bought that any of them still work today.

[@neilpaterson6264]

Very interesting Neil - that must have been some very serious design work for that period without the EM simulation tools we now take for granted! (or a huge bucket of failed prototypes!). I look forward to all the details.

[@C_Dana]

Love the history lesson and brilliant technical work. You did very well to detect the bug working in the poorest circumstances! Brings back some old memories, but can't discuss!😉

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

It works very well in my home lab, but then we have no cellphone service here and the digital TV transmitters are all at least 40 miles away. When I doid the original on-site noise survey, there were no cameras or sound gear or LED lights. Those put out a wall of noise about 25dB higher than the background from microwave links and broadcast and all the other noise and mixing products. After blowing up the PA, I was pretty much sunk. Not being able to use the aperiodic receiver was the last nail in my coffin!

[@BerlietGBC]

Just outstanding. To back engineer a device you know worked from in accurate information 70 odd years late and get it to work with the the noise we now have in the modern wold is a staggering achievement

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'll be publishing the next part later today, it's a deep dive into how the Bug worked, plus a little bit of the machining and some other matters raised by the CIA, FBI and Naval Laboratories reports. I just realised that I've been up all night, it's light outside. I really need to get this uploaded and get myself to bed! KZbin usually takes 3 hours to process it and uploading is slow, so I expect to have it ready around 5 pm UK time, but we shall see how the upload goes. Fingers crossed!

[@BerlietGBC]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Looking forward to, excellent work

[@HarryWHill-GA]

Bravo Zulu (Well Done) sir. As someone with a patent in Electronic Warfare and as a NSA retiree, I can appreciate what both you and the Soviets went through. You get a well deserved subscription.

[@adriancentra]

Extremely interesting and presented so well, but it took me over half the video to realize he was talking about “bugs”, not “books”

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Subtitles are your friend when trying to decode a Lincolnshire accent!

[@theradiorover]

A great story Neil, and really well orated by you. I do wonder if the use of these bugs became widespread once the Russians realised how effective they were. There could still be some out there, hidden in buildings.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I seem to recall that after Glasnost became popular, Gorbachev passed the US a list of the locations of 75 listening devices in their Embassy. This one had serial number 11 and there were certainly others found. Then it all went a bit popular, with Buran and Easy Chair and Satyr and Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and All. The pulsed ones are interesting, I might have a go at one of those.

[@michaeldimmitt2188]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves WOW! 75 and all tuned to their own frequencies!?!? How many “empty rooms” were there for the listening teams?

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@michaeldimmitt2188 I think the tech was rather more advance by the time of Glasnost and Perestroika!

[@whoguy4231]

In 2023 everyone is carrying the perfect bug in their pocket ... Ha ha ha

[@sharg0]

Interesting and wonderful story presented in a most pleasant way! Thank you for sharing!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Glad you enjoyed it! It was immensely stressful, but also huge fun

[@Scrogan]

Fascinating, can’t wait for the deeper technical details and machining the thing.

[@fletcherreder6091]

Oh, I was expecting this to be good, but this is great! I'm extremely excited for the rest.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

With such rich source material, it's hard to make a bad video about this.

[@labbertubes]

Damn. Didn't know there was such a thing as unpowered / selfpowered bugs. That is so cool.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

There are LOTS more, the EASY CHAIR variants are a bit more clever, with a diode used for rectification AND modulation. I think I have to make one of the early versions of those!

[@klausbrinck2137]

That is not "cool", that is "soviet". That was there before "cool" was invented...

[@m1k3droid]

I remember reading about this bug a few decades ago. Great to hear someone has reproduced it and got it working.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'm sure lots of replicas have been made over the years, but I wanted to prove a few things to myself and repeat the FBI lab tests as well as teasing out the correct timeline. I didn't mention John Ford's role and didn't clarify about Sam Janey's part in the discovery because there was so much contradictory evidence in the historical record

[@DK640OBrianYT]

It really was a magnificent brilliant ingenious thought up device. Absolutely spectacular. Still impresses everybody this day around almost a century later. Well 80 years or so, give or take.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Couldn't agree more!

[@JonathanSteinert]

Amazing story. I look forward to the rest.

[@sibalogh]

I was doubtful about Peter Wright when he described in his Spycatcher book how this type of bug worked for MI5 against the Russian embassy in London (hidden in the statue of Lenin?). Do you think it was true? Lev Sergeyevich Termen, better known as Leon Theremin, did invent many types of electronic devices and he could have contributed to this one as well.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'm sure a lot of what the infamous Peter Wrong rambled on about was true, and his ghost writer did a competent job of extracting the bits that were closer to fact than fantasy, but I think the book is best treated as a ripping yarn rather than a technically authoritative and historically accurate review of covert surveillance.

[@ambulocetusnatans]

At last the KZbin algorithm finally recommended something interesting. The title of the video earned a look-see, and when you said you don't watch TV, that earned a subscription. The television programming here in the States is even worse than yours, although if we had even one presenter with the credentials of Hannah Fry, I might be persuaded to occasionally tune in. We perhaps have more channels, but there is even less worth watching.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I stopped watching TV about 25 years ago and we only kept a TV because my late wife liked some of the documentaries. The amount of extra hobby time that freed up was amazing. Folks used to ask how I managed to do so many projects and the answer I gave was "I don't watch TV". I don't enjoy movies either. I read books in the wrong page order and re-read good pages and chapters a lot but skim and speed-read other bits. I like KZbin because I can treat a video like a book and skip about.

[@TheTemporalAnomaly]

I totally agree with your comments!

[@fngrusty42]

What a wonderful story. Couldn't happen to a better guy. Great job and thanks

[@Wreaktifier]

This bug has inspired me since childhood, and your work is fantastic, but I'm most excited that you're mum got to brag about you being on TV.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Yep, that's the best bit of all. She's 92, so it's taken me a LONG time to get on the TV. She watched this video earlier this evening on her slick new Windows 11 laptop. She's been a hardcore computer user since she operated a Tandy TRS80 model III in the late 1970s.

[@kevinbyrne4538]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves -- Your mum reminds me of my dad. Back in the early 1970s, when personal computers were still in their infancy, my dad was the sales manager of a company that sold industrial machine tools. The company had a computer and my dad wanted to use it to conduct studies of sales data. But the guy who operated and managed the company's computer refused to co-operate: he thought that my dad just wanted to play with the machine. So dad finally bought an Apple computer and he taught himself the Basic computer language. After that he was hooked on computers. He developed programs to solve basic cryptograms (among many other things). Eventually he did analyze his company's sales data, and he "discovered" that sales of industrial capital goods occurred only when the national economy was expanding. (Of course this would have been old news to economists, but he could now prove the point to his bosses using the company's own sales data.)

[@domgag1756]

Fantastic story!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I've known about it for most of my life, but only the bare details. When the BBC asked me to work on the replica, I found out just HOW amazing the whole story was and wanted to share it. I needed to prove the technical details to myself and cross-check as much of the historical record as possible. There's SO much disinformation and guesswork in much of the published work, and I've probably made mistakes and got things wrong, but it's been a life-changing experience for me.

[@mobuildsstuff]

Wow, awesome project. I first heard about this bug in school, when our physics teacher told us about capacitive microphones and went on a interesting tangent about covert microphones and old school spy gadgets.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Sounds like an excellent Physics teacher. I just hope my History teacher would approve of my research methodology. I was bottom of the class in History.

[@adamkwalczyk]

That's some quality engineering! Imagine how many of these remained uncovered.

[@tommihommi1]

I wish they had mentioned the issue of cluttered spectrum as what makes this whole idea so much more difficult today (and I would guess the transmit power you could use without possiblity causing interferences yourself is something the russians also really didn't care about at all back in the days) But overall the BBC video was better than I expected to be honest :D

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I did mention that in the BBC section but in one of the next vids I'll show the spectrum analyser noise level and do some comparisons of noise power. The limit in the 1940s was phase noise rather than thermal, but they had no power likit other that that imposed by technology. Deep dive soon, I promise

[@raydunakin]

What an interesting bit of history!

[@WayneLambrightIII]

Thank you for such a thorough and well spoken description of everything going on I'm an engineer myself and I really enjoyed your presentation your top class thank you.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Deep-dive techie explanations of my findings will hit KZbin soon!

[@christophmosimann9244]

I tried this with my iphone 12 pro max. I could barely hear the other person speak during a call. but after trying this, it sounds basically like brand new again. Thank you!!

[@Skinflaps_Meatslapper]

I had a passive interest in passive bugs, however, this has now been...amplified

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'm considering a replica Easy Chair. Still passive and unpowered, but with active elements!

[@user-fh2fm7vr4m]

This is awesome! I love your channel and think your past few videos have been your best yet! They’re getting so much higher quality, despite already being so good before!!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I think I like telling stories. My family have always treated storytelling as an important tool for social cohesion. I'm not going to go all polished and corporate, I'm having fun with all of the camera tech but this is the first time I've made a proper video using an analogue microphone like the SM7B and a Zoom F3 audio interface and only the third time I've appeared on camera, so I need to get a HUGE lot more experience until I can do this to a level I'm satisfied with. I'm trying to get Blender to do my bidding so I can superimpose 3-dimensional field waveforms on to real video images, to give me a way to do more intuitive visualisations of the way fields work. I'm just talking to a sponsor about a really cutting-edge project that looks like it might be a huge pile of fun. I'm also trying out some slotline feeds, where instead of sending RF down wires suspended above a groundplane in a stripline, you make a negative version, where there is a gap between two sheets instead of a wire. It's like a slot antenna, which behaves rather like a dipole but radiates at 90 degrees to its orientation, except the slot can be very narrow yet high conductivity. Also looking at weird dielectrics that have a high permeability and a permittivity of the same numerical value so you can make small printed antenna arrays that scale linearly but still have the same impedance and bandwidth. That takes a bit of imagination. Lots more in the pipeline, lots of machining to do as well, plus electroforming, sputtering (if I can get a working turbomolecular pump to go with my roughing pump) and some fancy printed circuit boards for 10 GHz power amplifiers with milled copper heatspreaders mounted in 3D laser sintered stainless steel enclosures! I have NO time left to sleep or go to work at the Day Job.

[@allenshepard7992]

Brilliant pice by you and the Russians as it required no wire, no batteries. One just listened for the change in frequency like a FM signal from what I'm told.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'll explain exactly how in works in a deep dive video. The actual modulation is complicated, but I was using slow detection in AM mode. There are better ways to do it using a homodyne approach

[@allenshepard7992]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Thank you. I, like many others, look forward to the video. [actually we look forward to all you vireos :) ]

[@caujka]

Awesome story! I could not stop watching. Blimey, such a brilliant invention, exciting journey in finding and reverse engineering it,and such a thrilling story you share with us! Thanks!

[@LarryHAboveRHeads]

Did I miss you say Leon Theremin was forced to build the this bug that was put in that wooden plaque. He was kidnapped by KGB in New York taken back to Russia to bug their own army base then was put into wooden plaque

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I was going to do a history of Lev Termen's life, but it's a bit off-niche. He had been an NKVD operative all the time he was in the US, after gaining permission to travel and showing Lenin his inventions.and was possibly involved in money-laundering to support espionage ops in the Americas. There's some funny business about the operation in Panama. He was perhaps keen to return home to avoid the attention of the IRS and scrutiny of his finances, so when he had the "invitation" to travel from the NKVD folks, he was probably easily duped. After he returned, he was convicted of a murder plot, despite it happening while he was in the US, and sent to a labour camp, but then he was transferred to the one sharaska, then to the one near Moscow. The list of internees is a who's who of USSR aerospace and technology. The story has been told well several times, but even the lad himself did a bit of disinformation, saying that he returned to help with the war effort. He'd been forcibly divorced from his first wife by the NKVD because she'd been "consorting with fascists", he said he was hoping his American second wife would be able to join him, probably good that he was duped. It's all a hugely complex and interesting life and a fantastic story

[@notamouse5630]

Having read Wright's book, I have always wanted to see one of these. Thanks.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I've been vaguely aware of all of the various Bugs since I was a teen, but actually making some was a whole different experience. Machining vids out soon, and deep Bug Physics too

[@neosenshi]

Thank you for your excellent presentation on this so far. I am very much looking forward to deep dive on this bug. Experimenting with this kind of thing is why I maintain my amateur radio license, and why I want to get myself a machine shop!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Even a mini-lathe and mill are transformative tools when it comes to making things. I bought ancient cast-iron clunkers at much less than a lot of new small machines and it paid off, but I really need a CNC machine for repetitive work like large slot arrays. Having a day job really makes it tough to get out all the videos I want to make, but it pays for the toys. I've had my ham licence since I was 15, and I'll have been messing about with radio for half a century later this year.

[@juliussokolowski4293]

Marvelous! Absolutely bloody marvelous! This is why i love RF, both as a job and as a hobby!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

It's kept me fascinated since 1968

[@vbkfivn]

This is an absolutly outstanding video and I can't wait for more! Also loved that you put sources in your description for further reading. As an embedded systems engineer with a fascination of cold war era spying it was super cool to see how "older" tech worked! Any chance we can see what program on BBC you were on?

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

For those able to access BBC programming, The Secret Genius of Modern Life Episode 1 (Bank Card) is at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001f1td I am on about half way through, I can't watch the program as I don't own a TV, nor do I have a TV licence, which is required in the UK to watch BBC content. I suspect there are techniques that naughty people can use to circumvent the geofencing, although I suspect that most VPN services are blocked. The programme should be there for the next 8 months at a minimum.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I would love to find out exactly what transmitters and antennas were using in the operation. I guess the NKVD would have access to klystrons capable of operating around 1 GHz, but whether anything other than a bare diode mixer would be available on receive I don't know. The noise figure would be high, but with 5 to 10 watts of excitation and directional antennas, that shouldn't have been a problem. If the receiver was a homodyne using the excitation as a local oscillator and a zero IF, then the receiver would only need phasing and amplitude controls. It wouldn't need a local oscillator. An RF amplifier stage using miniature valves/tubes mighr have been feasible. The Svetlana tube factory was relocated to Novosibirsk in 1941 and they were making "Acorn" miniature tubes for UHF from 1937. www.computer-museum.ru/histussr/svetlana.htm www.jogis-roehrenbude.de/Roehren-Geschichtliches/Geschichte_Russischer_Roehren/Geschichte_Russischer_Roehren.htm The 6F4 acorn tube was well known in 1947, and capable of operation up to 1.2 GHz on receive. There are some notes about gold plated acorn triodes as well. Whether they were available from local manufacture in 1940s Russia I don't know, but until 1941 they would perhaps been available form Germany. worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Handbooks/Radio-Handbook-11-1947.pdf The 6Ф3Ж acorn triode is a copy of the 955 which was first made in 1937, so there's a good chance that Termen would have been aware of the technology as he was still in the US at the time. www.radiomuseum.org/tubes/tube_6f3j.html

[@malkeus6487]

I'm rolling laughing picturing you two doing poses around the antenna like some arcane ritual. I'm planning to find the interview in hopes of seeing it

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

It was very VERY silly indeed. They only showed about 10 minutes of the 3 hours of video they shot

[@zyeborm]

​@@MachiningandMicrowaves that's quite a lot really, wastage rates are often quite a bit higher. Several orders of magnitude for "reality tv"

[@AppliedCryogenics]

And that's why American ambassadors abroad now keep unpopped popcorn in their offices-- as an early warning system of enemy microwaves.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Brilliant!

[@juliusfucik4011]

I have learned from this video that mainstream media has deep connections in government and that everything you see on TV has gone through dozens of takes.

[@AugustineKizis]

Great work. One the best I have seen. Thank you.

[@stephenhicks826]

Just loved this - thank you. Wonderful technical detail, spiced with humour.

[@soothcoder]

Good story and cool tech! Would have been a blast to be part of the production.

[@KayAteChef]

Whoever invented this is a genius.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Lev Termen had a lot of skills. He had a pretty amazing life thestrip.ru/en/glaza/nash-sovetskii-tesla-neobychainaya-zhizn-lva-termena/ kzbin.info/www/bejne/nobKf56IhNSnppI

[@nfnworldpeace1992]

you had me at "my task if i choose to accept it" best line with theme ever!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I forgot to film the next line. I had two rolls of brown PVC tape on a plate and I was going to light a fire underneath it and film the smoky result with a deep US synth voice saying "This tape will self-destruct in five seconds"

[@TheLouisEric]

This seems to be a distinct design from the one found by Canadians ! The design when found was improved upon then used in the doors of a Soviet-aligned country's consulate. The consulate was eventually sold and made into condos. I asked if they had changed the doors and was told that the originals were nice and would be kept ! I did offer to buy one but they refused, probably wondering what was wrong with that apparent door fetishist.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Excellent! I hadn't heard about the doors!

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

_"What could possibly go wrong?"_ Some of the *MOST FAMOUS LAST WORDS* ever spoken....

[@satyris410]

Incredibly fascinating, it's not often that a video captures my attention solidly for 30 minutes without interruption. I have the attention span of a bored Springer Spaniel. (Case in point, I've just spent the last 5 minutes searching spaniels to make sure I got the right breed I intended. I got to a wikipedia page on digitigrade quadripedalism before remembering what I was meant to be doing, i.e. writing this.) I think Hannah Fry is great, I don't have a TV either and don't watch TV programs in the traditional sense, I much prefer watching things like this on KZbin where there is an infinite supply of things to watch. Thanks for sharing this I look forward to the next instalment.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'm more into plantigrade bipedalism myself. I asked my Chihuahuas about their preferred gait but they said "Ooooh! A Squirrel! and ran through the cat door.

[@satyris410]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves I completely empathise

[@liamwinter4512]

One of those moments where I take a long quiet look at my phone. About 2 weeks ago my son asked me what was the most interesting innovation made during WW2. I told him radar and some of the spybugs made, this was the one I was explaining to my kid. I've never looked it up on any device and actually have a schematic for it from one of my old electrical engineering books printed in the 70s.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Proximity fuses are pretty cool en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze but I might end up on some Lists if I started making those! Getting a 4-tube circuit to fit inside a shell spinning at 20-30k rpm was one h*ck of a feat, and using a thyratron or ignitron as the trigger was an interesting approach in those pre-semiconductor times.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I particularly like how they set up a test in the 40s with full-sized aircraft rigged as drones and fired prox-fuze shells at them and had to go home early because all three planes were destroyed by the first four shells fired. It sounded like they had a disappointing day somehow.

[@edgeeffect]

That would have been a great story no matter who told it.... but you made it greater with your triffic delivery. Great video... even if I don't understand all that RF stuff.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I'm conscious that I talk at quite a rate, but I'm trying to ensure my subtitles are accurate and not gabble too much. I'm still way too nervous about being on camera, but this is only my third time, not counting the BBC. The rest of the story is just as amazing. I just WISH I could find that one image on the internet of a device with a grille almost identical to that of the Great Seal Bug. That would let me pinpoint exactly which patents or manufacturers Termen was gathering his industrial espionage from. It's SO annoying that I didn't save it at the time. I'm normally fastidious about that sort of thing. I'm trying to get to about a weekly cadence for videos, but it might be fortnightly until I build up a stock. I have 59 video outlines in the production pipeline now. Marvellous.

[@edgeeffect]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Your little asides when you're talking are just perfect, silly enough to make us smile but brief enough to not distract too much... Excellent stuff, keep up The Great Work.

[@higgme1ster]

I didn't expect much of this when I saw the title but it was beyond what I could have imagined. In 1975 I enlisted in the United States Air Force with the guaranteed job in Telecommunications Control Systems. I had to wait months until a training billet opened up for a start date in Basic Training. As an Air Force communicator I had an FBI background investigation for a Top Secret security Clearance. After I arrived at my first permanent duty station I was in a very large work center where I rotated between Days, Swings and Midnight shifts. Where you are sitting around the console desks after midnight, waiting for something to go wrong, the topic naturally came up about the Soviet Spy device in the Ambassador's Office. As young electronics technicians, using a M/W carrier superheterodyned through a passive box was a pretty cool idea. Then years later reading stories in the news about people in Embassies being bombarded with microwaves, I just thought, well duh! But still none is the wiser. www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/business/economy/havana-syndrome-microwave-attack.html The word is the spy tech now, is so sophisticated that the M/W carrier superheterodyned with vibrations of window glass from people talking will reveal what is being said in the room.

[@fredderf3152]

My dog Jasper is in his final days. Your testimony today will help me deal with losing my friend. I thank you for your words.

[@gorillaau]

I'm sorry to hear that. It made me little seat as it remind me of my late Aunt. Plrase bear with the story. She had a dog called Nugget, the rest of little were all named with a mineral theme, mother dog in the same little was called Jasper. Sorry, I know now the other 4 or 6 names. I could find out from my father s he might be able to recall. When the time is right, consider getting new dog. We are better for having pets in our lives. My wife has a cat that will growl out people that come to the door. Not hiss but full on growl, with the cat being mistakened for a dog. I hope the above also cheers you up. Take care.

[@jerrys.9895]

Technology Connections wants his set back. Great video though!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I nicked the idea from VidIQ's white IKEA shelves before I was aware of Alec's much nicer setup and better lighting. Also he has much better hair!

[@cubertmiso]

this gives me good vibes. editing is home grown with a good mic. thank you for the hard work!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Great description! Definitely home grown like most things I do

[@ohanneskamerkoseyan3157]

Not to mention, it was developed by Leon Theremin, who also invented the musical instrument bearing his name.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

indeed

[@jeffreyyoung4104]

I heard about this bug when I was a student going for my electronics degree, and it made sense as to how and why, but it was just a stroke of luck it ended up where it did, and not in the bin, where it belonged! But the story of the Trojan horse must not have been remembered by the people involved? I remember a rumor about a soviet built American embassy that had passive bugs thrown into the concrete for decoys that it made the Americans build a soundproof Faraday cage inside the basement for any sensitive communications to be conducted in, because the removal of the decoys would destroy too much of the structure. But I suspect the truth is stranger than the rumor! I do know most diodes with the leads trimmed for certain frequencies can radiate a harmonic frequency that is three times the original source frequency, and would cause someone to take notice! But like you said, in today's RF swamp, passive RF tech is very difficult to do with success! But not impossible...

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

The pinned comment from Johan at the Swedish Spy Museum gives some valuable background about why the specific gift was created for Harriman based on profiling of his weaknesses by Beria's team. Back in the 1970s, I used to have a power tripler from 432 to 1296 MHz that used a varactor diode as the active (unpowered) element, and on my desk right now I have some beam-lead multiplier diodes which are about the size of a grain of sand but will multiply to 248 GHz

[@HAMRADIODUDE]

Great presentation and delivery!

[@MrTONESHOP]

Great explanation, Neal !!! A wee bit like the functionality of the proximity fuze in WW2 1943 . So the soviets think ahead ..........

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Prox fuses are pretty amazing tech. That is one of the thing on my list of projects, with the projectile slung from a guide wire and driven by a drone fan. The "detonation" will probably be a puff of powder or a spring-loaded flag saying "Surprise!!!"

[@technophant]

I’m American and I was able to watch the BBC iplayer video. I used a VPN and needed to switch servers once so it wasn’t blocked. Created an account then said “I have a license” and it played

[@danielhunter2670]

"In for a Penny, in for a Pound"...one of my favorite sayings....

[@yinlab1263]

Awesome video and very well presented Sir

[@nophoto6875]

I feel like I just listened to Q explain the history of a device that he's about to hand to 007. So glad your mum got to see you do that.😊

[@isidoromaich7226]

It's seems you hired the Technology Connections set decorator's assistant

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Nope, I stole it from VidIQ. Alec's IKEA shelves are much better lit and a nice tasteful wood veneer. Also, he has better hair

[@VATA_OFFICIAL_CHANNEL]

Спасибо Большое за такой подробный рассказ! Это история известна в России, но никогда не рассказывалась так подробно.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Здорово иметь возможность рассказать эту удивительную историю. The story almost tells itself, it's a great tale from those distant times.

[@galileo_rs]

Imagine creating that in 1940s without computers ...

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I guess they had some watchmakers available, but Termen lifted a lot of the concepts from US patents. More of that in another video.

[@galileo_rs]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Last time I checked, watchmakers were not proficient in RF. Strange how it took Americans a whole lab to figure it out when they invented it.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

All of the info was available at the US Patent Office, but there's a lot of smoke and mirrors surrounding the whole investigation. Some of it is down to Peter Wright's rather fanciful book. There was a US patent for an RF-activated microphone in 1937, but adding the external antenna and using wireless excitation rather than connecting it in the feedback circuit of a VHF oscillator was almost certainly from Termen himself as a result of his work with electronic musical instruments.

[@galileo_rs]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves And your previous presumption that he knew about that patent is based on?

[@litebkt]

Fascinating stuff. Thanks!

[@WillowEpp]

I wish I could show this series to my grandpa who got me into the world of radio. He'd have definitely gotten a kick out of the story of getting it working in the field!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

It was only slightly better in the controlled environment of my lab. Definitely one of those hyper-finicky setups. Much better solutions came along later, and I'll be looking at them later in the year

[@spladam3845]

You are a great storyteller. Subbed. Great information and technical detail, all very fascinating.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

This story just about tells itself. Tale-telling has always been important in my family where most of my forebears lived in tied farm cottages and had no property or land to bequeath to the next generation

[@polygonvvitch]

Glad to see someone who remembers the NKVD didn't become the KGB until 1953.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I think "It's Complicated" is a good way to mark the relationship status of who was responsible for the operation at particular points. There was a Whole Lotta History Goin' On during those years, with the GUGB, NKGB, NKVD, MGB, GRU, KI, MVD all merging and being separated and generally playing a giant game of musical chairs.

[@MrGribouillage]

Ok, I NEVER click the bell, you made me change that ! Excellent 👍

[@jirkasvitil2762]

Wow great job It seems unreal that this kind of devices can even work

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

It's a fascinating mechanism for sure

[@KarldorisLambley]

i watched this video 9 months ago. it made zero sense. since then i have bought an oscilloscope, a function generator, boxes and boxes of components, and a couple of bench supplies. i have immersed myself in bigclive and electroboom videos, all day, every day. i taught myself to solder and started making stuff. i have made synthesisers using cem3340, 555 timers, op-amp devices, amplifiers, i got into model rockets just so i could learn about arduinos by making avionics. my study now looks like a junk shop. i have had the most wonderful year. so i re-watched the video just now. and it made sense! it absolutely made sense. thanks for making what was opaque perfectly pellucid.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Excellent! Radio, electronics, computing and generally making stuff has kept me enthralled since I was ten years old back in the 1960s. The new generation of TinyVNAs, TinySAs and similar low cost RF instruments has transformed the hobby by removing some of the barriers in gaining access to testgear. Exciting times we live in!

[@skeptik212]

I must say, I consider myself a very stupid individual. And I have no idea of the technical words you use. I'm a bit lost to be honest. But I did enjoy watching this video very much. Thank you for taking the time to make it!

[@miaouew]

Lovely video, I really enjoyed the story and storyteller!

[@JawwadHafeez]

Thats so amazing... very impressive.

[@thebush6077]

Saw the topic. Heard the voice. Knew this was gonna be interesting and immediately subbed lmao

[@laserspaceninja]

new here -- and wow, this was so amazing! congrats on getting it to work!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I wish I'd managed to persuade them to film the demonstration at my house where the radio noise level is more reasonable, and that I'd taken a second amplifier, but it was a lot of fun anyway

[@duckythescientist]

I'm so happy these videos are finally coming out!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Me too!

[@gorillaau]

​@@MachiningandMicrowaves Are we able to view the program that was broadcasted by the BBC? Oh, I'm and Australian so probably region locked out in any case. Thanks for this amazing effort and triumphing against the RF noisy modern world..

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Geolocking can be worked around I understand. I've heard from folks who have managed to find a solution. The Secret Genius of Modern Life Episode 1 (Bank Card) is at www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001f1td I guess that simple VPNs are blocked, but I'm sure there are folks who know how to circumvent those. I can't possibly comment as I work in cybersecurity.

[@OnnieKoski]

I love that they just called up the NSA 😅

[@TheMdondero]

Thank you for this story: it was interesting and left me with a genuine snickering smile while i pictured you folks waving arms around a fiddly microwave receiver. Good stuff :+)

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

That occasion is going to stay with me for ever. We were doing half-inch movements while watching the software-defined radio waterfall to maximise carrier suppression but bringing up the wanted signal. We could see it despite it being almost inaudible via the speaker. That little Malahit radio was a deliberate choice. A Russian-made radio for a very Russian subject. I used to have some splendid Russian transistor radios in the 1970s, I wish I still had them.

[@privacyvalued4134]

1:40 "My mum might be watching. Hi mum!" If only every KZbinr would assume their mom/mum was watching their content, then KZbin would be a lot more polite and have a lot less cussing.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

My grandmother was an excellent source of expletives. She'd yell at the cat every time it attacked her ankles and let rip with some choice invective. I miss my gran.

[@SunnybraeCroft]

Absolutely bloody fascinating! Had heard about this bug before but in little detail. Thanks for taking the time to explain and this will go into the box labelled time well spent on KZbin. Loved the comment about magic smoke, it’s one I have used many times.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

There are two other vids (well perhaps three) in this series so far but there are some more in the pipeline and also some more about the next generations of bugging devices later this year

[@patrickmcneilly4293]

Oh cool, I see a Lab Snacks in the background. I work in production and I always chuckle when I see either a Lab Snacks box online.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I have many many boxes. Omnomnom.

[@sn1000k]

Dude you bit that backdrop from Technology Connections. No harm no foul. Your delivery is 10x better.

[@sn1000k]

Note: I wonder where he adapted the idea from!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Actually I stole it from Rob at VidIQ. I hadn't seen Alec's much better version. His lighting is very nice, mine is just LED strips stuck on the back to illuminate a curtain. He has much better hair than me too. First one of his vids I saw was about the kerosene lamps. My grandfather's house had those in the 1960s, although they did have electricity as well out in the rural fenland of south Lincolnshire

[@polyfoamcoats1650]

More "active" footage and/or manufacturing footage is highly appreciated.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

I ran out of editing time so the machining will be in one of the next vids. I need to reshoot the making of the resonator because I had a camera fault. Lots of heavy science in another one, but the machining one is going to be intense!

[@polyfoamcoats1650]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Looking forward to it. Thank you for responding.

[@gorillaau]

​@@MachiningandMicrowaves I lkve the subterfuge and spycraift that went into this device and the torhan horse like seal to get it mounted near the desk of someone important. A great video. I'll share it around a bit.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

@@gorillaau The devices and spycraft that followed were fantastic. GUNMAN is one of my favourites, IBM typewriters were compromised and leaked confidential messages for many years media.defense.gov/2021/Jul/13/2002761779/-1/-1/0/LEARNINGFROMTHEENEMYGUNMAN.PDF

[@nicolashuot]

Fantastic project Sir !!! I can't wait for the next videos...

[@4dirt2racer0]

thanks for the story brother, i needed some good normal down to earth stuff to relax n come down with, its been one of those days.. : / n the pain level is absolutely thru the dam roof i hate getting old..

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

My father, a legend for his dad jokes, would say "Getting old sux, but I still prefer it to the alternative"

[@4dirt2racer0]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves thats cool youve got memories of him lol yes! he is absolutely right, id much rather be on this side of life lol i complain but please dont get me wrong, i absolutely love life! just a long painful day ..i dont love my luck however ..or the pain : p

[@УзеирМамедов-п6л]

As I know this bug was projected by Leo Thermen who invented a thermenvox. He actually was a cellist and graduated from Moscow conservatory

[@BazilRat]

The joy on Hannah's face when she heard something tells you he's not joking about how long it took.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

That poor PA was a total hero

[@BazilRat]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves Definitely!

[@billbates7810]

A fascinating and thoroughly interesting video, thank you! God bless, Bill.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Thanks for watching! There are two more in that series already made and two more in the pipeline, then I have another project about a different unpowered spy device EASYCHAIR Mk2 later this year

[@billbates883]

@@MachiningandMicrowaves I will certainly look forward to that! Thanks again.

[@ShiryouOni]

Awesome story, and awesome Hannah ;)

[@johndoe-is2fw]

making mom proud is always worth the hussle. -Sun Tzu

[@WayneLambrightIII]

Maybe you can comment I heard that the device was externally powered so the listener had to shoot energy at the resident cavity in order for it to transmit the sound and once the listener stop projecting energy onto it it was not detectable.

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

The device is entirely passive and like any antenna system, it reradiates half of the incident signal power when it's matched. By changing the resonant frequency, the amount of power collected and retransmitted (or backscattered) varies at syllabic rate and can be demodulated to extract the baseband audio signal. The power levels required are low, perhaps a few watts from 100 metres away. Later devices used different approaches, with some very clever systems that rectified some of the illuminating signal to power circuitry that amplified a hearing-aid microphone (sometimes a variable-reluctance type) and added scrambling to the signal so it sounded like background noise. For a good general background on the tech, have a look at the excellent site at www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/bugs/index.htm

[@tomcoward16]

your such a great storyteller!

[@MachiningandMicrowaves]

Tale-telling and re-telling has always been important in my family. Landless peasants and ditch-diggers don't own land or property and have nothing tangible to pass on to future generations other than their stories. I am only the second generation of the family to have owned property. Many of the earlier generations lived in tied cottages and lost their homes when they could no longer work on the farms. Stories were all they had, apart from the women of the family inherited gold rings and earrings and chains that could be sold in an emergency if they needed to make their escape from an abusive husband. Those lifeline heirlooms passed only down the female line. When your wealth consists only of stories and songs, you tend to pass on the tale-telling skills to your grandchildren. Thanks to my maternal grandma and paternal granddad, I picked up the gift and hope to pass it on to my great-grandchildren (Hi Polly and Adam) and future great-nephews and great-nieces. No pressure, Natasha! Heh heh...