On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 06:46:41 -0500, "Jeff Morris"
wrote:

As I recall, the spec mentions sidelobe energy at something like -20dB. That seems like a big
reduction, but when I'm passing a large ship at several hundred yards, that's still a lot of energy
bouncing around.
Thanks,
-jeff

I remember a couple of powerful radars you had to turn off if you were
coming too near a reflective object, like driving by another ship in a
channel. There was so much power reflected back, the stupid things
would blow their OWN receivers!

Navy used to have a huge air search radar, AN/SPS-30, easily
identifyable because of its huge round dish with giant "arm" out in
front to hold up the big waveguide and feed horn. It ran so many
megawatts it would cut seagulls out of the air, cooking them in
flight. We used to point them at the moon and pulse them, manually,
while feeding a signal generator into the test repeater (display) so
it would keep sweeping. That way you could count the number of sweeps
and measure the distance to the moon! You could actually measure the
difference over time in the moon's distance with it. Cool stuff.


Larry W4CSC

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