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I was working a radio van once. If I remember correctly, it was putting out 1000 watts.

I was outside at night and my hand brushed the end of an antenna lead, coax, that was not being used. It burned a hole in my hand. I did not feel it. I smelled my burning flesh. The unused antenna picked up the power being radiated from the nearby in use 1000 watt antenna. If i had grabbed it, I could have been killed.

You Navy guys may be able to validate this. I was told the missile director on a ship, when in operation, would/could kill birds that flew through the beam. I believe this is a type of microwave beam.

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Originally posted by mas4363:

You Navy guys may be able to validate this. I was told the missile director on a ship, when in operation, would/could kill birds that flew through the beam. I believe this is a type of microwave beam.

The MK92, fire control radar we used in the CG for 76mm OTTO MELERA automatic gun was HERO & HERP (hazard electromagnetic radiation ordnance & person) unsafe for some distance. Such that if we were reloading SRBOC (mortars that launch countermeasures from the ship) we had to turn off that radar because it would set the round off (it’s electrically ignited) and lookouts couldn’t be on the 04(weather decks above the bridge) on a WMEC class ship due to the microwave energy that they would get dosed with. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._cutter_WMEC-910.jpg

On this pic, it’s the egg shaped radar...the SRBOC mounts are behind/inboard of the stacks (aft of the blue coved flag bags for signaling) they are grey and you can only see the tops of the tubes.

This is the same story decades ago at an American embassy i believe was in Russia. It was Very Low Frequency waves is what I remember.

A close friend ham radio operator liked to work the mode of EME(Earth Moon Earth} Moon Bounce which means he actually physically bounced his radio signal off the moon and talked to people around the United States as well as the world. He held certificate #7 for working all 50 US states. His antenna system consisted of multiple yagi antennas w/ 17 elements each all mounted / connected on a dual azmiuth rotator together which he could control direction and elevation. His power output was legal limit and due to the multiplification factor of the antenna elements he could kill tree top leaves as well as kill birds in flight if they passed thru the beam flight while he as transmitting his signal. .............. drill sgt.

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Originally posted by drill sgt:
His antenna system consisted of multiple yagi antennas w/ 17 elements each all mounted / connected on a dual azmiuth rotator together which he could control direction and elevation. His power output was legal limit and due to the multiplification factor of the antenna elements he could kill tree top leaves as well as kill birds in flight if they passed thru the beam flight while he as transmitting his signal.

Well, I guess it's a good thing he never went off the deep end and decided to become a supervillain, because that sounds like only a half step away from building a death ray in your secret volcano lair.

We had family friends who lived in Pisgah, OH. It was up near the VOA towers. All kinds of towers in that installation. For them, it was typical to get VOA on the frying pan and coffee pot. As kids, we'd camp out near the WSAI towers. You just knew what song was being played from the barbed wire. Didn't always hear it, but you might be humming it. If the other guy was also humming the same song, it kind of made sense to us.

As kids we made crystal sets with diodes and headsets. Was easy to pick up the local stations. Didn't matter much because that was all we listened to or wanted to.

Back in the CB radio days, I had a "linear amp". Maybe not exactly legal... But one time I foolishly grabbed hold of the antenna and got a nasty burn. Learned my lesson.