Topband: you think you have interference problems

N7DF n7df at yahoo.com
Tue Jul 31 06:24:41 PDT 2012


 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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