QUESTIONS, ANSWERS, MORE QUESTIONS


>Hmmm.  What would cause ground clutter the width of the State of Texas?
>Somebody must be puffing a big cigar. 

Have a look at this drawing:

http://www.osf.noaa.gov/eng/AP_Final_Report/images/slides/duct_diagram_small.gif

The nominal range of NEXRAD is about 600 km. If the signal is "looping"
between the ground and whatever causes the "trapping refraction" in the
"duct" (humidity, I gather), you will see ground clutter all along, out to
the extremes of the signal's propagation. The anomalous operation of the
radar in such a case "projects" ground clutter onto a very wide area.

> And if the signal reaches the ground,
>will it fry blackbirds, buzzards 

A one-degree beamwidth (with average 1.3 kilowatts power) will fry all sorts
of things if they are close enough. That would take some geometery to
calculate... But I would think beyond a few thousand feet of the radome the
power density would be too low to cause any permanent damage to organisms.

>Are NEXRAD and GWN finder scopes for bigger guns?
>see:
>AIR FORCE: Applying Weather-modification to Military Operations 
>http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap15/v3c15-3.htm#Applying Weather-
>modification to Military Operations

There's a lot of speculation in those articles. NEXRAD would only be used to
collect data, build databases, and act as a feedback mechanism for weather
modification. HAARP is the keystone here: Ionospheric heating. HAARP seems
to me like only a research tool. The REAL damage will be done by
application-specific transmitters (heaters). These will be multi-gigawatt CW
(continuous wave, as opposed to pulsed technology) transmitter farms.
Space-based platforms, nuclear powered, will be even more versitile. 

I thought this passage deserved special attention:

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from: http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap15/v3c15-4.htm#v3c15--4

Nanotechnology also offers possibilities for creating simulated weather. A
cloud, or several clouds, of microscopic computer particles, all communicating 
with each other and with a larger control system could provide tremendous capability.
Interconnected, atmospherically buoyant, and having navigation capability in
three dimensions, such clouds could be designed to have a wide-range of
properties. They might exclusively block optical sensors or could adjust to
become impermeable to other surveillance methods. They could also provide an atmospheric
electrical potential difference, which otherwise might not exist, to achieve
precisely aimed and timed lightning strikes. Even if power levels achieved were insufficient
to be an effective strike weapon, the potential for psychological operations
in many situations could be fantastic. 

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Microscopic computer particles! Wonderful... "Killer Clouds". And how about
the "psychological potential of directed lightning strikes" ??
Eee-gads!!!

Ground rods anyone?