[Milsurplus] Woodpecker Redux

[Hubert Miller]

If you listened to shortwave in the late 1970s early 1980s, you were surely at some time
bothered by the 'Russian Woodpecker',  over-the-horizon ( OTH ) high powered HF radar.
Here's a short 6 minute video, very interesting scenes of the remaining antenna and
buildings of the one remaining of three built.
When I saw the antenna, I thought, well maybe they could convert it to some kind of
zip-line attraction, but unfortunately this remaining antenna is too close to Chernobyl
hot zone for tourism.
It looks to me like the reflector backscreen is made of wire lines and although I couldn't
make out the size of the dipoles in front,  it looks like a lot of individual dipoles of cage
construction, I think to increase the working bandwidth of the dipoles. There is also a
fair amount of electronics junk lying around, like actual circuit boards with transistors
visible. My acquisitive nature says someone should either preserve the inside of those
buildings or at least sell off some of the memorabilia. If it's not too "hot" !  Also I noted
the size of soldier barracks. Typically Soviet, I thought, to have an oversupply of guard
contingent.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0864g3p/the-secret-soviet-radar-hidden-in-chernobyl-s-shadow

I recall a winter around 1980 when radio propagation was really good. I took a CB walkie
talkie to Amateur Radio Supply, in Seattle, to put it up for commission sale. When I flipped
the talkie on to show that it worked, lo and behold "tuktuktuktuktuk.....tuktuktuktuk...."
It was the Woodpecker ! I also remember, amazingly, a little handheld AM transistor that
I swear, I heard the Woodpecker on in the background. That radio may have had a
misalignment problem !  Maybe you OTs remember an article in '73 Amateur Radio'
magazine titled "H5H, Comrade". The article suggested you "reply" to the Woodpecker
by sending CW and thus encourage the crew back in Russia to shift to some other
frequency. I tried this one evening, sending h5h over and over. The Woodpecker did
go away, finally, but I truthfully have no idea if it was to get away from my interference.
My 40 watts from a TCS. Probably not !
-Hue Miller
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