Matthew Bevan

They studied it.

And eventually they realised that it worked by Soviet spies would park a car outside the ambassador's residence, beam a high-frequency signal into the residence from a car outside.

which would be picked up and wobble the antenna.

And then they would be able to pick up the vibrations of the antenna bouncing back to them.

So that's the way that you would activate it, kind of.

And the antenna was attached to a capacitor microphone

which would, you know, if voices that were in the room with the bug would wobble the little membrane on the capacitor microphone, which would wobble the aerial, the antenna, and they were able to pick up the vibrations of the membrane on the capacitor microphone back in the car and there record what was being said inside that room.

So when they weren't parked outside firing this beam of concentrated radio waves...

at it, it was just a stick and a coin, basically.

It was nothing.

There was nothing unusual about it at all.

It wasn't broadcasting anything, and it had no power source, which was the incredible thing about it that meant that it was totally impossible for them to find.

There really was no way of them finding it until they figured out how to activate it, and then that was what allowed them to find it inside the seal.

Yeah, they did.

They very much did.

And conveniently, they were able to figure out exactly who gave them the seal.

It was a group of children, basically kind of like the Soviet 1940s equivalent of a scout's troop.

Oh.

I knew they shouldn't be trusted.

Every time I see Stoutster, can't be trusted.