I visited the
Royal Air Force Air Defence Radar Museum at Neatishead last month and found it very interesting indeed. There were presentations made during the visit by operators who had served there and explained the workings as well as a few anecdotes. One of these concerned a Soviet intelligence-gathering trawler off NW Scotland which was selected for a "roasting" for some reason. The power was turned right up and "aimed" at this ship and, supposedly, burnt out all electronic equipment. This rather puzzled me because
AFAIK radar is line-of-sight and there are certainly a good few hills between low-lying Neatishead and the coast of NW Scotland and also wouldn't all this immense electronic power be destroying a swathe of electronic equipment across Britain. I asked the presenters about this and got no coherent answer.
Can anyone here tell me if this was true and/or possible, or simply a canteen story spun to anybody not in the know to amuse/impress them ?