Tour the Russian 'Woodpecker' (DUGA): Featured in CNN Travel News

Chip, terrorism (freedom fighters, revolutionaries) is asymmetric warfare; MAD is symmetric. Duga was built in the MAD era, cold war.

 

I have the Wood Pecker in my log.

 

Exactly. But the second function was asymmetric: offensive, quick, and unexpected.

 

A CRUDE estimate of the antenna gain...

8 x 15 array = 120 elements. (I may have counted wrong, please correct).

Each element has roughly 6 dBi (with GP)

ROUGH gain = 6dBi + (about) 21 dB = 27 dBi.

ERP estimate, attack mode (no losses)....

log P(Chernobyl)+ 27 + 13 (focussing) dBW

If P(Chernobyl) is 4 GW....

ERP (rough) = 96dBW +40 = 136 dBW

This is too high; probably lose 6+ dB for cabling limitations .

Call it roughly 130 dBW (max).

With losses, 120 dBW is conservative....

That's a terawatt+. At HF.

Arecibo is about 2 terawatts at 430MHz, for comparison.

Take into account prop /path losses(Friis, not radar equation...one way), but add large number of delivered impulses for irradiated damage. IOW add another 20 dB after subtracting the prop losses, to get the delivered power to target.

Your calc...



73
Chip W1YW

 

I get well over a KW irradiated **at target**....

If my 120 dBW is too conservative, (try 123 dBW) that can easily be a megawatt at target.

Nasty stuff.

 

Notwithstanding the soviets (both old and re-branded) hate us, Duga was a great first attempt at OTH detection and tracking. Unfortunately for the soviets, it was not very good at targeting incoming aircraft, so from the bang-per-buck perspective, it was a bad deal .... so it's now defunct. As P/Od at us as they are now, I wouldn't be surprised if they resurrected some sort of new OTH copy of US technology ... after all, the Chicoms certainly are!

 

Hmmm...typo. Not megawatt. 130 dBw gets you over 10KW at target.

Not easy to shield, on surface, 10KW at HF....

It is interesting that the frequencies chosen produce resonances on rocket-long platforms.

 

Pretty typical CNN "report" full of gross technical errors and inaccuracies. When "reporting" technological stories, the pop news media seems to lack any credible experts and often produces claptrap worthy of a supermarket tabloid. Fortunately for CNN, there is no shortage of cretins who love to wallow pseudo-science and conspiracy theories

 

I remember many cw QSO's obliterated by this peckerwood back in the 70's. Glad it is dead.
Don

 

Well lets see. BACK OF ENVELOPE APPROXIMATION
I estimate the one array to be 18 x 18 dipoles.
18 x 18 = 324 dipoles.
Gain of the array is going to be about 27 dBd So 1 kw in is going to look like about 350kw EIRP
10 kw in is going to look like about 3.5 megawatts EIRP and so forth; 100 kw in 35 megawatts EIRP
That is for ONE of the arrays. I believe there were 4 arrays?

 

Assuming 1kW into Duga at 27 dBd gain, received power at Chicago (into a dipole) for path length of 8100 km at 14 MHz is -42 dBm. (More or less for an ionospheric path)

Scale accordingly for greater or lesser xmtr power.

 

I tried to copy this array and planning was thrown out!!

Councils are just not ham radio friendly these days.

 

In 1979 I was on a cargo ship that called on Maputo in Mozambique. The chief mate and I were both hams. As we started into harbor he told me to knock off that he would take over my duties and I was to go to my stateroom and hide my ham gear as he had just done with his.

Just before I tore things down I took a fast listen on 20 meters. I had pegged S meter on my Argonaut 509 from the woodpecker. I took the antenna off and it was still pegged. After that I quickly secured my equipment in the bottom of my seabag with clothes on top. I left out only my portable sw rx.

When I went up on deck to resume my duties I saw a huge HF array similar to the one in the photos in this article on an island to our starboard (north side of the channel). I have no idea how much RF exposure there was but I am sure it was very high, especially when I could have the S meter pegged with no antenna in a steel box with a 13 or so inch opening (port hole).

With modern satellite one wonders why such HF radar is needed. I expect it is because those countries who have built the HF OTHR have the means and plans to destroy satellites in orbit and feel that others do as well.

 

This flickr page has the layout:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/martintrolle/7460071090/sizes/l/