Posts Tagged ‘HAARP’

HAARP to be saved?

The (controversial) HAARP project in Alaska is closing and the facility being dismantled, but scientists are trying to save it. See http://www.adn.com/2014/06/03/3500302/scientists-make-last-ditch-effort.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1 .   There have been all sorts of conspiracy theories. One of the objectives was to generate uW or mW level ELF signals (to communicate with submerged nuclear submarines) by heating the ionosphere with AM modulated HF signals.

http://media.adn.com/smedia/2014/05/14/19/42/1qEGYg.AuSt.7.jpeg

“What a shame if they have to tear it down, they just finished the build out to the full array a couple of years ago!

I was fortunate to get a tour of the site about 10 years ago as my friend Steve W4YHD was the Chief Engineer, quite impressive! I have some photos (35mm film, not digital) which I need to scan.  The HAARP transmitters were true AM transmitters as they were used to heat the ionosphere and generate e.l.f. waves by modulating the carrier with low frequency audio tones, very inefficient (but all elf transmission schemes suffer from lack of efficiency),many megawatts of HF energy used to excite milliwatts (or perhaps microwatts?) of elf radiation from the ionosphere.


    I recall that they had a Radar on site and were supposed to shut down in case an aircraft flew through the beam. They also had an ICOM R72 receiver so they could listen before transmitting so as not to cause QRM !  The whole lashup was powered by a series of 5 generators driven by diesel locomotive engines.   The transmitter was actually a bunch of final amplifiers, solid state driver and a 3cx5000 PA tube, housed in trailers below the antenna array, each trailer housed a number of 3cx5000 PA’s – the PA’s were fed by an HP synthesizer (don’t recall the model #, might be in one of my photos) and fed with equal lengths of coax so all PA’s would be in phase. There was a method to shift the phase across the array so as to change the shape and direction of the beam. The antennas were bow-tie dipoles broadband from 3-10MHz.  The whole thing was controlled by Sun Sparc workstations from a master control room.  Just for fun I tuned up one of the transmitters on 7.290 MHz AM to see if I could strap Ashtabula Bill W8VYZ, of course it was daytime and I don’t think anybody was affected!

   Was hoping to make a return trip to see the fully built out site but its looking very questionable at the moment.

73 Warren K2ORS”

LHS Episode #027: Where Are My Meds?

haarpWe have topped 40,000 downloads! Thanks go out to all of our listeners and live webcast attendees for making Linux in the HAM Shack as popular as it is. Give yourselves a huge round of applause. We're also well on our way to our donation goal of $750 so we can buy booth space and Internet access at the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, Ohio, in May of 2010. Thank you for all of your donations. Please keep them coming as you're able to send them in!

In this episode, we address listener feedback and comments, and then in a burst of inspiration invite listeners from the chat room to come onto the program for a lively and very fun roundtable discussion. Topics were varied, from portable antenna design, to life without Red Bull; from the HAARP VLF array in Alaska to D-STAR, PACTOR and other digital ham radio communication modes. And since I was on meds and Richard was off his, things got a little crazy towards the end.

We hope you enjoy this episode of Linux in the HAM Shack. Please leave us comments or questions on the web site or via voice mail at 888-455-0305. And send your best wishes to Bill, KA9WKA, who has taken on the responsibility of getting LHS's show notes out in a timely fashion. Thanks, Bill. You're a lifesaver!

73 de Russ, K5TUX


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