[time-nuts] Re: The Collapse of Puerto Rico’s Iconic Telescope [April 5th, 2021 New Yorker]

[Wes]

On 3/30/2021 4:33 PM, Lux, Jim wrote:
> On 3/30/21 2:56 PM, Wes wrote:
>> You would know better than I, but I was thinking of physical size; 100m v. 70m.
>>
>> Obviously a BIG difference in TX power.
>>
>> Wes
>
>
> It's all about EIRP, baby.
>
> I know they're talking about half a megawatt for GB, but I don't see it 
> happening. They've spent so much time making it "radio quiet", putting a big 
> honkin transmitter there seems odd.   Just think, a return loss from the feed 
> of -30dB (which is pretty good) is good fraction of a kilowatt. 


But AFAIK the system is bistatic (pseudo-monostatic) so there's no local 
receiver to be subjected to transmitter leakage.  We worried about leakage in 
the pulse doppler radars I'm familiar with; AMRAAM and Phoenix missiles, but 
even they were bistatic for most of their flights, tracking off the aircraft 
fire control radar which had significantly higher ERP.  Only when close to the 
targets did they go active.

Wes