Flight Detent says:
>Then I'm wondering why our Ops manual for the B737-700 tells me the safe distance for the WX radar, >in the full 180 degree forward arc, is 275 feet!
I'm not sure what the effective radiated power is for a weather radar - I assumed 50,000 watts. On that basis, if we assume the standard saftey level of 1mW/sq.cm (10 watts/sq. metre), then at 275 feet, the power is 0.566 watts/sq. metre.
That takes no account of the fact that you have to take average, not peak power into account (that drops the effective power by the duty cycle) and for radhaz work, you also integrate the total exposure over 6 minutes.
It's still not a good idea to get too close though. When I did the radhaz course, there was an exercise to find leaks in the waveguide of a 2 MW radar transmitter (the radiated power was much higher): I found them faster by running a hand along the waveguide and feeling for the warm place than was managed with the proper intrumentation. Not really recommended!
The eyes are the first things to go, by the way......