Activity 11 – Using an Oscilloscope with a Microphone

Activity 11 – Using an Oscilloscope with a microphone.

ACTIVITY 11 – Using an Oscilloscope with a Microphone

A common S1/S2 experiment is for pupils to look at the oscilloscope traces associated with different sounds. One way to do this is to plug a microphone
into the oscilloscope and speak or whistle into it.

What You Need
• Oscilloscope
• Microphone.

What To Do
• Switch on the oscilloscope and obtain a horizontal line trace across the centre of the screen.
• Plug in the microphone.
• Speak or (better) whistle into the microphone. Adjust the timebase and Y gain controls until a clear trace is seen.

Hint
The signal from the microphone is weak.
You will probably have the Y gain control at
its most sensitive.