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August 50> 19^4
SCISSORS AilD PASTS
BBC Develops Midget Recorder for Battle Front
On the technical side, war reporting as it has developed during the course of the war presents two problems. The first of these is to provide a medium b,/ v/hich v/ar correspondents can record their impressions whilst actually at the scene of military opera¬ tions, Frank Gillard, BBC war correspondent v/rites. The second prob¬ lem is to transmit that impression or recording back to Broadcasting House in London for inclusion in the various programme services.
It was realised in 1940 that lighter equipment should be designed v^rhich could not only be carried by the v/ar correspondent but be sufficiently simple in design for him to operate himself. A search produced two kinds of portable recorders, neither of v/hich was found entirely suitable or available in sufficiently large quantities.
In a few weeks the BBC research engineers produced what is now knov/n as the iiidget Recorder, and it is this recorder which did such excellent service in reporting the first fourteen days of the campaign in Normandy. Its weight is 55 It)., its size little larger than a portable gramophone, and its operation is confined to one knob.
To save battery v/eight, the motor is clockwork driven and the microphone-cum-recording amplifier, with its dry batteries, are all inside the box. The battery unit has been built on the casetteloading principle and is capable of running the amplifier for a per¬ iod of about an hour. The recorder v/ill run for 5i’ minutes without changing the disc, and a warning light shines 15 seconds before the end of each disc. Should the correspondent disregard this, the re¬ corder automatically stops.
These Midget Recorders v/ere used by BBC correspondents in the first assault on Normandy, one accompanying the airborne troops. During the first phase the discs were transported back to Lngland, v/here they were censored, re-recorded, and copies distributed by the 'v'ar Reporting Unit operations room to the various BBC programme ser¬ vices. u'ithout these recorders many of the despatches which have been heard in the nar Reports would not have been possible.
It v/as realised at the outset that the delays and. difficul¬ ties of conveyin^;. disc recordings back to Broadcasting R.ouse w^ould. be considerable unless access could be obtained to a radio telephone transmitter within easy reach of the front line. In the hediterranean campaign existing transmitters xn the area \73re used for this purpose.
During the last two or three years the EEC has been prepar¬ ing v/ar reporting transmitters, and these are being installed behind the battle fronts for the transmission back to this country of war correspondents* material. One of these is a lovz-power transmitter
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