HAARP Amping It Up

n6kuy writes "HAARP (the High frequency Active Auroral Research Program) will be adding 132 more transmitters to bring their total number of transmitters to 180. "When the massive planar array for ionospheric research is completed in 2007, it will include a total of 180 Continental Electronics D616G 10-kW combined transmitters, which the company is upgrading specifically for HAARP," the supplier (Continental) stated. The facility is near Gakona, Alaska. The installation began in 1993 with 18 transmitters, expanded to 48 in 1998 and will grow to 180 transmitters. The final expansion will bring the HAARP array to full power, with ERP increasing from 84 dBW to about 96 dBW. 96dBW is about 4 billion Watts. There is speculation that the project is really an "effort to develop ways to jam the electronics of incoming missiles from Russia and/or China". 4 billion Watts oughtta do it."

Comments

From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[Senes]

HAARP is a United States defense project, one of the many defense measures against nuclear warfare. For more information, see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAARP (Wikipedia.org)

Re:From TFA (and other materials on the subject)

[deglr6328]

HAARP is being upgraded by the DOD as a "defense measure against nuclear warfare", but not in the sense that you or the other hundred odd Art Bell quoting posters here seem to think. Specifically, it is not being used to "jam" or "shoot down" any ICBMs or some such nonsense because that is impossible and is well...what's the phrase here that I'm looking for...oh right...fucking retardedly impossible.

So why is the Pentagon interested in upgrading HAARP to ~4 GW? Well, if you do some research on HANEs (high altitude nuclear explosions) you will find that a nuclear explosion of even modest energy (100 KTons) is sufficient, when detonated at an altitude of greater than a couple 100 Km, of flooding the Van Allen belts with high energy electrons. (the native electron population of the radiation belts is "heated" via inverse bremsstrahlung from the hard X-rays emitted by the nuclear detonation) It is even capapble of creating NEW radiation belts at lower altitudes than normally found and it is thus estimated, extrapolating from experiments such as starfish prime in the 50's, that virtually ALL sattelites in LEO would be destroyed within days by ESD and radiation damage if an event like this were to occur.
HOWEVER! HAARP is capable of irradiating the ionosphere with VLF EM radiation of quite high intensity and thus can alter the so called "auroral electrojet", creating a ginormous "virtual VLF antenna" in it by altering its temperature (and thus its conductance). The HAARP is thereby capable of depopulating the radiation belts of high energy charged particles in a fraction of the time it would ordinarilly take for them to calm down on thier own and thus potentially saving the many sattelites in LEO. Sound crazy? Well, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and THAT is why the Pentagon is interested in this thing, not for some kooky mind control/weather control/ray gun type kookery.

Re:I have no idea...

[mpoulton]

But, four billion watts is a lot of power. The HAARP power page says that for every four watts of power transmitted, ten must be generated (40% efficiency). That's ten gigawatts, and the six diesel generators mentioned on the site produce only fifteen megawatts. Where does the extra power come from?

It's not actually 4GW. It's only 3.6MW peak envelope power. 4GW is the max ERP, or effective radiated power, under optimal conditions. ERP accounts for antenna gain. In other words, the field strength is the same as that from a 4GW transmitter with an isotropically radiating antenna.
See the HAARP site's technical info on phases of completion at: http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/haarp/phases.html

Re:Wow big suprise US spending billions on defense

[killjoe]

"Besides, we all know that there was no war before the US started pissing everyone off. "

IN the last few decades the US has been involved in more wars then any other country on the planet. The problem we have with George is that he is waging war for profit, fun, and because "god told him to" (his words not mine).

What is the real Power?

[Dr. Null]

Just to make sure that everybody is up to speed on that stated power, Let me Clarify something about antenna radiation. What was quoted was 4 billion watts ERP. The term ERP means Effective Radiated Power compared to that of a simple dipole antenna. This is a sort of measure of power density, not absolute power. Power stated as ERP is a measure of the power radiated and how narrow the radiation beam is. High ERP power is very much like looking at a narrow laser beam from a great distance. The beam looks bright, so if you think that the light is coming from a source that is shining in all directions, then it is as if the light source is shining with megawatts of power. Although the beam is bright, it is very narrow in extent, thus the real power radiated is small. For antennas, the beam width is proportional to a measure called antenna Gain. Large arrays of antennas like the HAARP antenna farm have VERY high gains, thus very directional radiation beams. IT is more likely that HAARP antenna array has a collective gain near 1000, thus the real power is more like 4 megawatts, not gigawatts (something that can be supplied by on base generators).

Megawatts of RF power is big, but not big enough to knock down ICBMs. The Idea with HAARP is to use the RF power to heat the Ionosphere in the northern latitudes where there are enormous currents induced by the Aurora. The power sloshing around in the upper Ionosphere is of the order of Terawatts. They hope to modulate these rivers of currents by locally heating small spots in the ionosphere plasma, thus radiating gigawatts of power at ultra low frequencies ( 1 to 100 Hz)... a very cool Mad scientist Idea... Very evil..

DR. Null

HF RADARs [Re:This only works at night?]

[Doug Jensen]

As someone whose professional application domain includes RADAR, I verify that HF RADAR is a currently deployed and advancing technology. Over the horizon RADAR's, which are on the HF band, such as the Upgraded Early Warning RADAR, are alive and well. Do a search for "UEWR" at globalsecurity.org.