I wasn’t being altogether serious.
In Christopher Moore’s book Island of the Sequined Love Nun, the main character Tucker Case enjoyed blasting people with the radar from the nose cone of the Learjet he piloted. I always wondered what kind of damage that would really do.
Wouldn’t it have to be near the resonant frequency of water to cook you? My quick-and-dirty internet research reveals that microwave ovens put out 2.45 GHz, but the highest U.S. TV broadcast frequency is 807.25 MHz.
I’ve seen a video of a demo where they took some steel wool and placed it on the ground in front of an F-4. Added a little fuel and switched on the RADAR in continuous wave mode. Able to ignite the steel wool and fuel. The pile was over 100’ away.
Here we go again…
No, there isn’t any resonant frequency of liquid water. It seems to be something of an unstoppable science myth that microwave ovens are tuned to the maximum resonance of water, but that’s not the case. There is a maximum absorption point; a frequency at which liquid water aborbs RF most strongly, but it’s not 2.45 GHz - it’s more near 10 GHz. 2.45 GHz was chosen because it is absorbed well by most foods (but not TOO well - to much absorption makes only the surface layer cook), and because it wasn’t going to interfere with any then-current usage of the spectrum.
True. If you are closer to the antenna than where the ratio wavelength/2pi = 1 you are in the area of the induction field. In the case of an AM broadcast antenna that is a vertical, 1/4-wavelength tower, the field in this area is predominately an electric field of very high intensity for a powerful transmitter. As you get further from the tower the electric field decreases as the cube of the distance and the magnetic field decreases as the square. At the distance where the ratio = 1 the two fields are equal with Electric field intensity/Magnetic field intensity = 377 and that is the beginning of the area of the far field where both electric and magnetic fields decrease as the distance with the power (their vector product) falling off as the square of the distance.
I don’t know what the physiological effect would be of a strong electric field at broadcast frequencies but it can’t be beneficial. I recommend not doing it.
Measure twice, cut once - in other words before posting review, review, review.
That garbled part about the ration wavelength/2pi should read “the ratio of your distance from the antenna to the wavelength/2pi = 1” or about 1/6 wavelength away.
Unless, of course, the transsexual blows fire at you. 
The Mig-25 pilot who defected by flying his Mig-25 to Japan (Viktor Belenko?)indicated in his book that the radar in the nose cone would kill & partially cook a rabit on the side of the runway if he had it on and had to wait on the taxi-way a little before his take-off roll. :eek:
[Elmer Fudd, singing Wagner with a Russian accent]
Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Waabit, Kill the WAAA-bit!
[\Elmer Fudd, singing Wagner with a Russian accent]
Isn’t there one of these on the empire state building?
I’m fairly certain there are no microwave cooked rabbits on top of the empire state building.
There are however several communication towers: http://www.esbnyc.com/tourism/tourism_facts_broadcasting.cfm
What I was getting at is that none of those folks, myself included, seem to have gotten fried upon nearing it.
First, depending on the height of the tower and how fast you climbed you should be very tired. Probably the worst effect.
The antenns are designed to radiate the rf energy outward and away from the antenna and tower.
Otherwise little or no ill effects.
Assume that the radiated power is 1 kW (kilowatt) and the main beam of the antenna has a gain over an omnidirectional antenna of 30 dB, or a factor of 1000. In that case the power density at 1 meter in the main beam would be 79.6 kW/meter[/sup]2[/sup] which would be dangerous indeed.
You probably wouldn’t be in the antenna main beam but rather in one of the side or back lobes. Such extraneous transmissions would probably be at least 30 dB below the main lobe which makes the power density there equal to 79.6 W/meter[sup]2[/sup]. If your eye has an area of 1 cm[sup]2[/sup] the power into the eye would be 7.96 mW which, I think, exceeds the maximum exposure allowed by US standards.
If the radiated power differs from 1 kW, the numbers scale directly.
You guys must have some weak radio stations. We have a few in my area that put out 50,000 watts. Yes, 50 kilowatts. Would hate to see their power bill.
It’s not unusual in this country (Oz) for a tower servicing a rural region to have a radiated power in the multi-megawatt range.
For instance, there’s one south of Sydney at Robertson. It broadcasts 10-20 different frequencies in the UHF range, at 250 kW per frequency.
Jesus. You could skewer an ostrich on one of the elements an cook it in no time.
Emu. The bird’s called an emu. Not an ostrich.
Why settle for the second largest bird, just because it’s domestic for you? Africa’s right across the pond.
The pond? The North Atlantic ain’t anywhere near here, sport. And if you mean the Indian Ocean, there’s an entire continent intervening.