[Laser] New San Diego optical beacon

[Kerry Banke]

Paul - The closest I have done to what you are describing with some 
success has been either with clouds or pollution present. In clear 
skies I have not had enough scatter from a vertical beam to be useful 
out more than maybe 1/2 mile. With clouds I have done more than 3 
miles. This was done by using Jason software to modulate the power 
supply frequency for a 150W HPS lamp at  ground level. I have not had 
success luck using our 4" collimated 910 nm laser pointed vertically 
and trying to see it from some distance. I'm looking forward to 
trying to detect our new beacon with clouds, during rain or fog as 
I'm just not quite LOS to the beacon and wasn't able to detect it on 
a clear night.
  - Kerry N6IZW -

At 01:30 PM 1/22/2007, you wrote:
>I'm interested reading this... a while ago I made a pcb with 230 
>very!!! bright white leds, I used white because I got them cheap 
>from ebay! I planned to use it as a beacon from my house and shine 
>it straight up sending slow Morse modulated at about 400Hz, then 
>drive away to some high spots around and see if I could pick it up....
>I also made a 4" receiver and preamp using the K3PGP design and a 
>TBA820 op amp into the phones and laptop.
>Up till now I never did get round to doing this, but if anyone else 
>has tried this i would love to hear and spur me on to get it done for myself.
>Thanks Paul Tomlinson M0EME
>