What is this man doing?

Messages
2,701
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
Yes
I came across this picture when sorting through some of my Father's old negatives. So far as I can tell, this image was taken in the mid 1950s.

The context of the surrounding negatives doesn't help me very much: the image before was down some kind of a mine, and the one after was of Christmas decorations in a children's hospital (my Mother worked there).

My Father was a Civil Engineer, in case that should help.

The family have been unable to figure out what this guy is doing. Any ideas?

img013.jpg
 
Everything apart from the suitcase looking thing in his hand looks like a metal detector, doubt its that though
 
This is what happens when your wife won't let you play rock music in the house. You have to take your record player, pre-amp and headphones out into the garden.

(Edit to add - metal detecting would have been my guess. )
 
I wondered if it could it be a hand held TV detector, the panel does look like it's receiving something and would likely be directional.
They have just 'invented' them in about 2007 according to google, for use in flats or other areas where a vehicle couldn't go.
Nowadays he'd be in HiViz with Detector Team written on it as the intention would be to scare everyone rather necessarily actually track anyone down.
 
Last edited:
The buildings behind do look semi-derelict as if destined to be flattened so they may well be trying to locate services - water or gas.
 
Some sort of geophysical investigation. I would say maybe looking for pipe or cable a bit like cat /genny scan nowadays. I'd love to know too!

Great idea. We had C-Frames in BT (before cat & genny's) that we'd plug oscillator's and amplifiers into to find buried cables. Was a large... C framed thing. The getup was very similar.
 
I wondered if it could it be a hand held TV detector, the panel does look like it's receiving something and would likely be directional.
They have just 'invented' them in about 2007 according to google, for use in flats or other areas where a vehicle couldn't go.
Nowadays he'd be in HiViz with Detector Team written on it as the intention would be to scare everyone rather necessarily actually track anyone down.
IMO this is the answer.

Possibly likely to work in collaboration with the van mounted detection systems to pinpoint the particular house that they intend to doorknock.
 
I'd also guess at a forerunner of the CAT scanner/pipe detector. From the serious look on his face I'd imagine it's gas or electric.. unless they've told him he's got to pay for every gallon of water lost if he doesn't find that mains pipe before the JCB does! ;)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all your thoughts.

This was cable detection in 1910 (image from https://www.radiodetection.com/)
RDtheory-pic.jpg


So you may very well be on the right path.
 
Thanks for all your thoughts.

This was cable detection in 1910 (image from https://www.radiodetection.com/)
RDtheory-pic.jpg


So you may very well be on the right path.

A good find and thinking about your OP picture, as RDF was (following the war?) a well established technology......the fact that the case he is carrying and it's closeness, i.e. not aerial held at shoulder height, to the ground does infer pipe/underground investigation. Just a pity that so far no supporting picture of its usage?
 
When the local water board have a leak under the road (happens regularly on one stretch) his high tech device is a metal pole with a flat bit on top to put his ear on.
It works too with a high pressure main you can hear even a fine spray of water coming out
 
The buildings behind do look semi-derelict as if destined to be flattened so they may well be trying to locate services - water or gas.

I wouldn't be so sure about semi-dereliction: that's how plenty of urban housing was back then.
 
'Edward was convinced that his 'Walk Man' would be the toast of the Festival of Britain if only he could devise a more compact means of music storage than the twelve inch long playing record.'
 
'It suddenly began to dawn on Edward that he was perhaps becoming a little too preoccupied in his attempt to find the mole that had been digging up his garden'
 
Last edited:
'As he searched again for the signal, it was with a certain degree of sardonicism that Edward recalled the fireside chat in his tutor's rooms at Cambridge, when his recruiter had assured him that communicating with Moscow would be both straightforward and inconspicuous.'
 
What strikes me strongly is how dignified the chap looks, compared to his modern equivalent who would no doubt be outfitted in garish hi-visibility clothing and a hard hat or something.
 
Old ground penetrating radar.
 
1st go at a iPod
 
No, it was Sony's first prototype Walkman. It just took them another forty years to reduce the size of the batteries and tapes.
 
The pack and straps have a military sort of look to them while the "scanner" or whatever looks home made. A flat scanner like that might be a possible radio direction finding device but the wooden box seems pointless. I would have though a simple old mine detecor would be used for cables or pipes.
 
Back
Top