Great story, Syd. I've had my MKH 30/40 combo exposed to full-blown
monsoon rainstorms head-on. Fully soaked, I set my tripod and mics
over a kerosene lamp with a small cover to capture and deflect the
carbon and other smoke particles, being especially careful not to let
it get too hot. They were dry and working in about 90 minutes. Sent
it to Sennheiser upon our return to have the system checked and
re-calibrated. It was returned to our lab with the comment "It works
to specs. No problems found." I have been jamming my MKHs into my
back-pack, unprotected except for the Rykote windscreens and
shock-mounts, for about 14 years, now. They still work as well (same
sensitivity) as the two new additional sets we acquired last fall for
the National Park Service soundscape project we're currently working
on.
The Nagra story: While in the Antarctic in the early 80s, I was
working a particular site for a few days that was inland and the
location of an abandoned American research cabin. Notified of an
incoming weather system, I was stowing my equipment sheltered by the
cabin, which still had some deserted cans of food and left-over
equipment. Noticing a black object in a large cake of ice that had
formed inside the structure, I began chipping away at it with my
trusty Swiss Army knife just as the helicopter landed to retrieve me.
The pilot, nervous about the incoming weather, was trying to get me
on-board with my equipment but the closer I got to the black object
buried in the ice, the more determined I was to find out what was
there. Just as he threatened to leave me the ice finally released its
grip on the object...an abandoned Nagra 3. Rushing to the chopper
just as the impatient pilot was gunning the engine for takeoff, I
hauled the recorder on board. When I returned to McMurdo, I turned a
blow-dryer on the thing for about an hour only to discover from some
of the old-timers that the research site where it had been left had
been abandoned about 10 years earlier. After drying it, I put 12
D-cells in the battery compartment and loaded some tape onto the
transport, and voila!, it worked just fine except for the badly worn
heads that needed replacement.
Nagra story 2: Recording on a film shoot over a northern California
beach, I was hanging out the door with my feet braced on the runners
of a helicopter, the camera-man behind me shooting a long shot down
the beach. The chopper lurched and my Nagra IVs sprung off my lap
ripping the audio and sync cables from the camera and tumbled about
40 ft (about 13 meters) to the beach below. When we landed, the tape
was still rolling! The only thing cracked was the plastic cover
which needed to be replaced. We repaired the wires, plugged them into
the camera and finished the shoot with perfect audio.
More recently, I dropped a Sony D-10 Pro II DAT recorder a couple of
feet into a shallow pool. I quickly retrieved it and dried it out. It
never worked again.
So, the moral is...
Have a nicer day in the field with equipment that you know will work for you.
Bernie
>Anecdote. Not serious, so delete now, if you are!
>
>Walter, writing in praise of MKH mics, said:
>
> "I still have no plans to abuse mine unnecessarily."
>
>Nor had I! But ...
>
>There are times when time stands still - or seems to: Time seemed frozen,
>and so was I, as the mic lead unwound from around the wind shield leaving
>my MKH-815 dangling a foot or two BELOW the surface of the Blyth River in
>Arnhemland in the Northern Territory of Australia. (Salt concentration
>somewhat higher than that of the sea.)
>
>I had stumbled when trying to land from a dinghy. Notwithstanding the
>healthy population of Salties (Crocodylus porosus) in the Blyth, I wished
>I'd gone in, and the mic stayed dry. But I had some luck which I'll
>explain. But first to set the scene:
>
>The Blyth R. was Harry Messel's "calibration river". Knew every croc in it
>by its' first name. He could then do standard surveys of it and use the
>results to develop a correction factor to apply to surveys of unknown rivers
>so as to derive an estimate of the actual population, from the crocs found
>by spotlight in the survey.
>
>I was working (by invitation) as one of the navigators on his survey
>dinghies. We were recapturing yearling crocodiles that had been caught and
>marked as hatchlings the year before. Harry wanted the Queensland National
>Parks and Wildlife Service to hire him and his team to survey Queensland
>rivers for crocs and, as a NP officer, I was invited to observe. But there
>were no free-loaders on Harry's boat. If you were aboard on one of his
>surveys you had to work as a member of his team.
>
>Perhaps I should explain that Harry was Physics Professor at Sydney
>University. Canadian by birth, and a brilliant scientist. He had been
>tracking polar bears by attaching radios to them and I gained the impression
>that this was actually cover for his real activity of surveillance of
>potential enemies of Canada and/or the USA. Anyway he became hooked on
>radio-tracking wildlife and he explained that when he was appointed to the
>Physics Chair at Sydney, he looked around for a species that needed work and
>would present a challenge to his radio-tracking expertise.
>
>He arrived in Australia at a stage where crocodiles having been almost shot
>out for the skin trade were protected by law for the first time. Harry
>reckoned that if he could build a radio that could be successfully attached
>to crocodiles and perform for a reasonable time, that was about as severe a
>test as you could find. He succeeded ... and a croc very nearly dined on
>one of his team during the survey. An interesting story which I'll put in a
>second email. (You have been warned!)
>
>Also aboard Harry's ship (The "MV Harry Messel" - what else!) was a botanist
>working on mangroves - tolerated rather than encouraged by Harry, I suspect,
>for Harry regarded any aspect of biology as not being real science, as was
>Physics. But "Wellsy" (the botanist Graeme Wells) was allowed the use of a
>dinghy for his mangrove surveys when neither he nor the dinghy were required
>for the croc work.
>
>So my mic takes an unwelcome dip in the river. I reckoned that Harry, being
>a top physicist, and moreover, having worked on radios for the croc study,
>would be able to advise me on what to do. Back on the boat, I ask him. Not
>in the least interested. No sympathy; no advice. Fortunately, Wellsy was
>present and took immediate action.
>
>It is not possible to make specimens of mangroves simply by shoving them in
>a plant press to dry them. First they were killed by putting them in a
>plastic bag with absolute alcohol. So Wellsy grabbed my mic, rinsed it
>thoroughly in several lots of distilled water, then shoved it into absolute
>alcohol. After that we put it in the engine room to dry out.
>
>If I'd had enough patience that might have fixed it. But I didn't, and
>after a day or so, couldn't resist trying it. It worked for about five
>seconds, then died. But at least when back home, I could get it to a
>Sennheiser dealer, it was repaired and back to about 90%. That was c. 1980,
>and I used it successfully for another 20 years years thereafter, but it
>seems now to have lost much of its sensitivity. Unless it's just that my
>sensitivity has been greatly increased by using a Telinga mic!
>
>One could certainly say that I subjected that MKH to unnecessary abuse. And
>it says much for Sennheiser's quality, that it was able to be repaired.
>
>Syd Curtis in Brisbane, Australia.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: Walter Knapp <>
>> Reply-To:
>> Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 16:53:22 -0400
>> To:
>> Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] Re: MKH
>>
>> Wild Sanctuary wrote:
>>>
>>> The MKH series of mics are the most reliable systems we've found in
>>> the field...and that's after 35 years of recording under the most
>>> extreme circumstances...cold, hot, wet, dry...in various combinations.
>>
>> This is the real thing about MKH, it's got the track record. Spending
>> the chunk of change for one is a bit easier knowing about that track
> > record. There may be something else that will do it as good, but it's a
>> unknown.
>>
>> I still have no plans to abuse mine unnecessarily.
>>
>>> A philosophical addendum: the more experience one has in the field
>>> using any currently avaliable technologies to record, the less
>>> "expert" one becomes. The conundrum is that we know so little. As
>>> soon as one claims to be an expert in the realm of field recording,
>>> run as fast as you can.
>>
>> This is true of almost any technology now. But recording is so complex
>> that it's especially true. I figure I need a few lifetimes to even get
>> started on expert. And I don't believe I'm allowed those :-(
>>
>> It just snowballs, each thing you learn just shows you a whole bunch
>> more you don't know. It's probably the easiest when you get that first
>> recorder and mic and do your very first recording.
>>
>> On the other hand, part of staying alive is having new challenges to
>> meet. Otherwise you just vegetate.
>>
>> Walt
>>
>>
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>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>
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--
Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
P. O. Box 536
Glen Ellen, California 95442-0536
Tel: (707) 996-6677
Fax: (707) 996-0280
http://www.wildsanctuary.com
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