Excellent beginners' text.
Brookes, Paul
Electronic Surveillance Devices
Newnes 1996 reprinted 1997, 1998, 1999 Second edition 2001, reprinted 2002. (2002 version reviewed.)
You will be interested in this book if you
o Want an entry-level text on this topic;
o Are looking for something to interest and motivate students at high school or polytechnic level (eg: TAFE);
o Are running a hobbyist's class.
It is not suitable for
o Complete beginners. You need some basic knowledge of electronics;
o Someone looking to rip off a few circuits;
o Anyone looking for advanced techniques.
You may want to check your legal position under your local laws.
Surveillance technology is always of interest, especially to young people developing an interest in electronics. A reputation that you can build cool or sinister devices that are beyond the comprehension of the adults around you is good to have when you lack money or power. Building eavesdropping devices is a great motivator for students who have no strong direction but who might fancy themselves as evil geniuses.
This book provides a path into the technology for a reader who has a basic knowledge of electronics. The circuits are simple to construct, robust in use and can be guaranteed to work, providing they are properly constructed. However, you cannot just sit down and start building as there is little information on layout and parts placement. You need some initial experience.
To assist the beginner only easily available components are used, such as TTL ICs, the BC547, 1N4007, OA91, 2N3819, NE555, CA3140 and uA741 as well as standard passive components. You might need to look for a good VHF transistor for a couple of the projects since the BFY90 and BFR96 can be difficult to find. Some inductors might be hard to locate, so a knowledge of coil construction would help. Of course using better quality components would enhance these devices, but that is not the object - this is a teaching text.
All projects are constructed on Veroboard and sometimes a placement diagram is included.
Topics covered:
o Mains and battery powered devices compared;
o Serial and parallel phone line taps;
o There is a useful description on how to connect electret microphones;
o Contact and spike mikes;
o A wide variety of audio amplifiers from simple pre-amps up to very sensitive hard-wire systems;
o Simple FM transmitters including crystal controlled models
o Telephone taps;
o Mains powered devices for permanent placement, including how to build small mains PSUs;
o Remote controlled and VOX switching for tape recorders (this is a bit dated - who sells tape recorders these days?);
o Analogue video transmitters. (There is some mention of digital video but most surveillance cameras are analogue.);
o There is a small chapter on counter-surveillance devices and techniques which mostly emphasises the difficulties, as well as a dated chapter on receivers and one on the dangers of self-bugging;
o There is some mention of software based techniques, but this is superficial.
The review copy was a trade paperback of about 150 pages, of the high quality typical of Newnes.
"Paul Brookes" is the pen name of Paul Benton who has written extensively on electronics since the 1980s, often for the magazines Electronics Today, Practical Electronics and Everyday Electronics. He is a lecturer at the university and polytechnic level and works for a major electronics company in Britain.
A disappointment even for wannabe spies
The author presents dozens of circuits for audio surveillance devices many feature obsolete components like 741 operational amplifiers. They have such poor stability and noise poor performance that they have not been used for many years. Others use design techniques that were abandoned long ago such as transmitters made from one-transistor oscillators.Basic physical principles are ignored. A diagram of a laser for eavesdropping through a window shows a collimated beam passing through a simple convex lens without being spread. The laser beam bounces off the glass at at an angle defying explanation. Who can remember vidicon TV cameras? This old design is featured as one of two main types of cameras. The section on countermeasures misses most useful techniques for finding bugs. For example, if any of the circuits shown in this book were hidden under a board room table a nonlinear junction device location technique would be most commonly used to discover it. This technique is not discussed by the author, however.
[exerpted from a review for Security Management all rights reserved]
A true Benchmark for anyone interested in Surveillance
Although interested in electronics for many years, I thought that devices for electronic surveillance were complicated until I read this book. The book has loads of circuits diagrams that are easy to build, with a good write-up on how they work. Despite the physically small size of the book (only just over one hundred pages), this goes to show that size is not everything!There is no waffling or unnecessary photos of obsolete or irrevelant material, and is an excellent reference guide for any person interested in electronics. Excellent.
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