[Laser] New canadian record (Red Laser)

[steve kavanagh]

Pierre, Gabor et al:

Thanks.  I have the info for the Canadian records
list.  Only trouble is that RAC currently seems to
have no webmaster so I haven't been able to get the
records updated for some months.  The 3.4, 5.7, 10 and
24 GHz records are out of date too !

And on the subject of beam spreading I have been
making slow progress myself.  VE3ZXK and I recently
broke the 1 km barrier (one-way only) using a Class
IIa red laser pointer (<1 mW if you can believe the
label on a $1.99 surplus unit!) spread to about 2
degrees beamwidth, with apparently enough link margin
to get to at least 3 km.  Not record breaking stuff
but it's promising for VHF contest use.  I'm
estimating a safe distance for considering
driver/pilot startling at night to be under 200 m.  It
is about as bright as a streetlight.  

Receiver used a 60 mm lens, CD player detector and
AC-coupled preamp (MPF102 set up for very high
impedance input followed by common base 2N5088). No
significant audio filtering.....yet.  

It still took forever to aim the transmitter, but it
was on a pretty rickety tripod.  With proper mounting
and a decent aiming sight it should be much easier.  
So.... back to construction mode.

73,
Steve VE3SMA

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