[TowerTalk] Commercial Antennas

[W0UN -- John Brosnahan]

At 01:33 AM 11/1/2003, Tim Makins, EI8IC wrote:
>I wonder if some radio club has ever borrowed HAARP for a weekend, and put
>it on the Ham bands ? I've occasionally heard of Hams doing this with other
>big antennas, such as broadcast rhombics and curtains, and the huge 990'
>dish at Arecibo.

Here is a guess--

1)  Probably harder to do with an array controlled by the military than
by an array controlled by a university.

2)  Each element of the array is driven by its own TX--probably difficult
to configure so that an external TX would feed it.

3)  The array is designed to transmit upwards rather than at the
horizon.

4)  Power for the array transmitters and presumably for the incidental
steering equipment is provided by a 3.5 MW diesel generator run
by an engine from a railroad locomotive.  Don't know the fuel
consumption but know I can't afford it!    ;-)

Again, just an educated guess.

--John    W0UN