Is there a defense against this kind of thing? Not to sound cliche, but would a tin foil hat work?
Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
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Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#12RF/Microwave EE here. I actually tried this on myself several years ago with no effect. Specifically 20W at C-band into a 10 dBi standard gain horn a few feet away, pulse mod to 1 kHz. That was still not near enough power density. While it’s plausible, it would take a big effort to affect this many people. The peak power densities, as described in the paper, would be tens of W/cm^2; e.g. radar transmitters and big an…
Moreover, that would've certainly affected all unshielded electronics. Even older GSM phones had enough power to some times hang well shielded desktop PCs. And at the time all laptops were plasticky unshielded contraptions, that was even more evident.
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#13Is there a defense against this kind of thing? Not to sound cliche, but would a tin foil hat work?
A simple experiment result published by the MIT Media Lab, found tinfoil hats are not really effective. https://web.archive.org/web/20100708230258/http://people.csa...
> For all helmets, we noticed a 30 db __amplification__ at 2.6 Ghz and a 20 db amplification at 1.2 Ghz, regardless of the position of the antenna on the cranium. In addition, all helmets exhibited a marked 20 db attenuation at around 1.5 Ghz, with no significant attenuation beyond 10 db anywhere else.
Full electromagnetic shielding of the entire building perhaps? Like those at the NSA headquarter. It should give you a heavy attenuation on the microwave frequency.
BTW, why don't the intelligence agencies install a software-defined radio in suspected US embassies to log the entire microwave spectrum? It will definitely yield something.
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#14Why is this effect not used to develop a device that converts normal sounds into such microwaves that the deaf can hear?
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#15Is there a defense against this kind of thing? Not to sound cliche, but would a tin foil hat work?
I would guess a faraday cage or faraday helmet would work for sure, maybe even just special screens on the outside of the building or in the walls/windows.
In my limited experience with RF (from ham radio, which includes microwave work though I haven't done any personally) it's very easy to block radio signals even inadvertently, let alone when you really put your mind to it.
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#16RF/Microwave EE here. I actually tried this on myself several years ago with no effect. Specifically 20W at C-band into a 10 dBi standard gain horn a few feet away, pulse mod to 1 kHz. That was still not near enough power density. While it’s plausible, it would take a big effort to affect this many people. The peak power densities, as described in the paper, would be tens of W/cm^2; e.g. radar transmitters and big an…
Why in the world did you try this on yourself?
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#17RF/Microwave EE here. I actually tried this on myself several years ago with no effect. Specifically 20W at C-band into a 10 dBi standard gain horn a few feet away, pulse mod to 1 kHz. That was still not near enough power density. While it’s plausible, it would take a big effort to affect this many people. The peak power densities, as described in the paper, would be tens of W/cm^2; e.g. radar transmitters and big an…
Why in the world did you try this on yourself?
Curiosity. Why not? It’s not inherently dangerous. I’ve had real RF burns from tuning high power microwave amps.
The RADAR tick is EE folklore, from your brain expanding a few microns at the pulse rate. As I said, takes a huge power density to do this.
Cataracts are an issue with long term exposure. I guess we’ll know in the near future if this group of people has a higher incidence of cataracts.
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#18Is there a defense against this kind of thing? Not to sound cliche, but would a tin foil hat work?
I’m not sure that tin foil hat can protect you from lousy journalism based on speculations without any evidence or even clues.
They say that some experts in somewhat related field now agree that the previous speculations based on non-evidence might be somewhat plausible. You’re going to need some military grade tin foil hat for that.
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
(In response to your aside - if someone's writing about something in their free time they probably care about it so expecting a higher standard than you'd expect for someone grinding out a dime does make sense.)
I’m not a fan of standard media, but I think that’s an unfair assumption. The least it is too general. I’m sure there are many journalists who care deeply about topics they write about.
Maybe my phrasing was imprecise - I didn't mean they don't care about it at all, just that after the initial rush has worn off, often you do your job because you have to, while you work on your personal projects only when you're impassioned.
Re: Microwave Weapons Are Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers
#20RF/Microwave EE here. I actually tried this on myself several years ago with no effect. Specifically 20W at C-band into a 10 dBi standard gain horn a few feet away, pulse mod to 1 kHz. That was still not near enough power density. While it’s plausible, it would take a big effort to affect this many people. The peak power densities, as described in the paper, would be tens of W/cm^2; e.g. radar transmitters and big an…
Great comment. I was also wondering about detection--it ought to be trivial. I'm surprised that government buildings in places like this don't already have simple sensor arrays up and running, especially knowing of the potential for RF use in espionage (information transfer) etc.