This is clipped from New Scientist. Though not mentioned directly in the
article my wild guess is this effect is somehow due to SWR or something
akin to it. What do the feed line experts on the reflector have to say?
Speed of light broken with basic lab kit
Scientists have sent light signals at faster-than-light speeds over the
distances of a few meters for the last two decades - but only with the
aid of complicated, expensive equipment. Now physicists at Middle
Tennessee State University have broken that speed limit over distances of
nearly 120 meters, using off-the-shelf equipment costing just $500.
Jeremy Munday and Bill Robertson made a 120-metre-long cable by
alternating six- to eight-metre-long lengths of two different kinds of
coaxial cable, each with a different electrical impedance. They hooked
this hybrid cable up to two signal generators, one of which broadcast a
fast wave, the other a slow one. The waves interfere with each other to
produce electric pulses, which can be watched using an oscilloscope.
Any pulse, whether electrical, light or sound, can be imagined as a group
of tiny intermingled waves. The energy of this "group pulse" rises and
falls over space, with a peak in the middle. The different electrical
resistances in the hybrid cable cause the waves in the pulse's rear to
reflect off each other, accelerating the pulse's peak forward.
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