[Milsurplus] FW: Neon bulb as RF indicator ?

[Francesco Ledda]

In 1982, I was sent to work on a Nike Hercules base by Copenhagen in Denmark.  They had an HIPAR RADAR. This was a GE L-Band search RADAR with about 9MW peak power with a 350k yards range. We were there to work on a Chaff simulator. After being done with our work, one of the local airman asked if we could help him troubleshoot a problem on his Commodore Pet computer. Oh, yes of course! The computer was in the HIPAR RARAR building right under the antenna radome! A short investigation told us that the memory was getting corrupted about 15 times a minute! We could see a blip on the reset line in sync with the antenna rotation. In moment of rare intelligence, we  turned the light off in the lab, and the lights still blinked at the rate of antenna rotation! We knew that they had bigger problems than a failing Pet computer. We called the bird in charge of the site to inform him of the problem, and we went back home!  I hope they fixed it!





Sent from my iPad

> On Dec 25, 2023, at 10:07, Facility 406 <facility_406 at bruteforcedevelopment.com> wrote:
> 
> On 12/24/2023 23:58, Hubert Miller wrote:
>> This all depends on your output power. I think the GRC-9 will light a neon bulb even on the low power setting,
>> is that right? My 2M HT will not, my off the cuff math was too optimistic.
> 
> My 5W UHF Yaesu FT-60 HT will light a few inches of a 12" fluorescent bulb on 440 MHz with a 1/4 "rubber duck" antenna.
> 
> It's not entirely consistent, the times it doesn't happen right off, if I tap the bulb with the antenna, it'll  pop on.  I can slide the antenna up and down the tube, and the glow follows it.
> 
> Kurt
> 
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