A covert communication system for magicians and spies!

For a number of years the author has used simple magical tricks to entertain friends at parties and gatherings. The art of confounding an audience is a unique pleasure and all the more fun when the audience is in close proximity to the deception and the group is still unable to work out how the trick works. The author is also interested in electronics and as a consequence of combining these two hobbies, Sneaky was developed.

Sneaky is basically a two-unit one-way radio communication system. One unit, the Slave, is worn by the magician and the other unit, the Master, is worn by the assistant. The transmission path is unidirectional, that is, data can only be passed from the Master to the Slave. Exactly how the Sneaky pair are used in front of an audience is explained in the article.

Initial experiments were conducted using widely available low-power radio links, operating in the UHF band. The devices at first appeared to fit the overall design requirements being physically small, having low electrical power needs, requiring no operating licence and obtainable at a reasonable price.

Although these units can operate over distances of approximately 100m, the initial results were disappointing, due to reliability issues. It was only when these units were given an improved signalling system, overseen by a PIC microcontroller, that a fully functional system became a practical proposition. The final system has been tested at a number of gatherings and found to work reliably, whilst remaining undetected.