Hi all,
I think this "reporter" just had a case of the "what do I write today" blues.
But, the one suggestion about "something else" being involved like whales
beaching themselves may be closer to fact than first thought.
Being a pilot, I often wondered about our Radar sites and birds. Once had the
chance to ask a FAA repairman about this and he said "sometimes" he would
find many dead birds "around" one of this rotating dish antennas - but, not all
the time. Some of these were monster installations for 150 miles plus
range...The magnetrons looked like trash cans! There was one dish at Long
Beach, CA
that sat right out in the open where you drove into the old terminal - ran 24/7
as I recall. It had a rather fast rotation speed, to my way of thinking...about
15 or 20 feet above the roadway, right in the edge of a golf course. I
remember one of the lawn guys saying that sometimes (not always) they found
some
dead birds like 15 to 25 feet from the moving dish circle. I got the feeling
that
most must have been "batted" out of the air by the thing rather than fried by
the energy from it. These Radar sites must have us beat for power output by
at least 3 or 4 orders of magnitude!
Anyone ever noticed that little birds don't like to fly in high winds? How
about during a rain storm? How about many thousands "sitting out a storm" and
taking a lightning strike? Might explain the big numbers showing up, eh?
73,
Mel
KD7DCR
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|