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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!floyd
From: floyd@brl-tgr.ARPA (Floyd C. Wofford )
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Human jamming...
Message-ID: <1736@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 09:06:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1736
Posted: Thu Sep 26 09:06:08 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 08:25:40 EDT
References: <543@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: floyd@brl-tgr.ARPA (Floyd C. Wofford (MMW) )
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 60

In article <543@decwrl.UUCP> wasser@viking.DEC (John A. Wasser) writes:
>
>> Is it possible to direct radio waves towards a particular
>> location some distance away, in order to affect the behavior
>> of a person at that location?
>>    -Tom (tedrick@berkeley)
>
>	One sure way of effecting humans at a distance is to fry
>	them with microwaves... either with a big radar or a
>	high power maser.
>	telling me about a missile control system that would bounce a
>	powerful microwave source off a target to give the missiles
>	something to home in on.  He said that even if the 
>	missiles missed, the pilot would be cooked (probably an
>	exaggeration... but maybe not).
>
>		-John A. Wasser

Is it possible to direct radio waves?  Yes, and these devices are called
antennas.  Depending on the transmitter frequency, the main lobe of the
beam can be quite small, on the order of a few meters or less.  The tube
sources for RF power (klystrons, gyrotrons, BWO's, TWT's, ...) in these
devices are capable of producing sufficient power to harm someone.  The
power that one sees are affected by pulsing the sources.

An effective countermeasure is to take a high power source and pulse it.
The energy coming into a receiver can then be sufficient to cook the
front end of the other guy's device.  He knows this too, and is playing
a similar game.  This is the same phenomenon as the EMP from a nuclear
blast, an impulsive, high-powered radio wave.  It only takes one and bye
bye system.  The wave would be more spherical (no antenna in the blast to
direct the energy).  Much research is going on to harden integrated circuits
to withstand this type of phenomena.

In a seeker system, if it is an active system, the illumination of the
target is probably not sufficient to cause the death of the occupant or
occupants.  The logistics of generating that type of RF power for the
purpose would make the cost prohibitive.  There are cheaper ways of doing
the same thing.  The pulse power of the system would be enough to do
harm but effects are usually cumulative.  To fry someone would require
a large average power of RF.  Expensive.

There are long term effects due to exposure to radio frequency radiation.
Much research is being conducted in this area and being reported in the
open literature.  The August 1984 Transaction on Microwave Theory and
Techniques (IEEE publication) is devoted to microwave interaction with
biological systems.  There are many other journals which would report
similar material.  The effects that concern most people who work around
the stuff are damages to the eyes and genitals, you know the blind
leading the impotent.  I have not heard of any adverse psychological
effects of being exposed to RF energy, except perhaps paranoia.  I have
heard of some in-vitro experiments on certain neural tissue (of a type
of sea slug, I think) where the diffusion mechanism across a bilipid
membrane was stopped by an RF pulsed source for the duration of the
pulse.  The long term effect was to cause a total stoppage of the
mechanism.  I have of no other experiments, but I am sure that there
are more than Carter has pills.  (I don't find the subject overly
interesting at this point hence my lack of any great detail.)

floyd@brl.arpa