Originally Posted by
poppiholla
nice ... there was also a later version with a smaller mic and thicker padding on the headband
That version was fitted with an electret microphone which was tiny and only needed a small housing. They were used at LATCC but I don't think the NATS airports got them. The bigger microphone in my pictures is a magnetic-dynamic type, producing quite trebly and nasally speech with a basic tape recorder but perfect for radio and telephone systems of the time. It would be interesting to see how well the Astrolite would perform with modern ATC communications systems.