I live in the Sacremento Mountains of southern New Mexico overlooking the
White Sands Missile Range.
Frequently there are weird signals from the tests being conducted there that
impact the amateur bands but one of the most recent
exceeded all previous events.
I was listening on 160 late one night when a burst of noise hit my receiver
that not only totally wiped out reception but reset all the
menu items on my FT1000MP. Every indicator light on the front panel lit up and
the frequency display began randomly flashing numbers.
Then the radio shut off. At the same time my Alpha 77 linear made a loud
buzzing noise and tripped all of its overload systems.
After shutting everything off and disconnecting the power cords and antenna, I
checked for lightning in the area but it was a clear, calm night.
When I hooked things back up I found that I had to totally reprogram all the
menu items on the FT1000MP but otherwise it was unharmed.
Strangely, there were now several new menu items that I had never seen before
and that didn't do anything.
I did a system reset according to the instructions in the manual and they all
disappeared.
A few days later I discussed the event with some of the people I work with at
the New Mexico Museum of Space history and learned what had happened.
The Air Force Space Command at Holloman Air Force Base is experimenting with an
Electromagnetic Pulse Generator that is intended to disable
enemy missiles, aircraft and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). To test its
effectiveness they had fired a burst at a UAV flying over the missile range.
The burst was in the gigawatt range for only a few microseconds but apparently
my QTH was in the line of fire since I am 4,000 feet above the valley.
I can testify that their system works quite well in disrupting communications.
I just hope they don't try it out again during the Stew Perry Contest.
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
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