Parabolic microphones allow listeners to clearly hear sounds from far away. They are often used by bird call enthusiasts and also probably by spies. A parabolic microphone works by using a dish to concentrate distant sound onto an amplified microphone and they have been commercially available since the 60’s as demonstrated by this old Radioshack ad.

Usually, the listener uses a pair of headphones directly tethered to the parabolic microphone and walks around with the dish in hand. However, this week electronics hobbyist Mario Fillipi wrote in to RTL-SDR.com to let us know about his project in which he created a wirelessly operated parabolic microphone.

To do this Mario connected a wireless FM transmitter to the headphone output of his home made parabolic mic, mounted the dish on a tripod, and then used his RTL-SDR to receive the FM transmission and demodulate the remote sounds. Of course reception can be done with any suitable radio, but the RTL-SDR provides the advantage of being able to easily manage, record and analyze the received audio.

Mario used his wireless parabolic microphone to record the sounds of finches in a bird house that was about 70 feet (21 meters) away. Then he writes that in HDSDR he was able to analyze the finches calls in the audio spectrum waterfall. He noticed that the calls were in the 2300 – 6000 Hz audio range and that each call’s “imprint” or audio signature was very similar and could be easily recognized. You can listen to the finches calls that were recorded by the RTL-SDR in the audio file below.

Mario writes that this can be done with any commercially available parabolic microphone, but if you want to know how to build your own wireless parabolic microphone then check out Make magazine’s article on Mario’s work. The article shows in detail how to build a parabolic microphone out of a squirrel baffle (a bowl shaped piece of plastic that prevents squirrels from eating bird feed), a Velleman Super Stereo Ear kit (microphone + amplifier kitset) and a standard wireless FM transmitter. Mario writes that the audio range of his home made parabolic mic is about 100 feet (30 meters). A video from Make magazine showing Mario’s home made parabolic mic is shown below.