PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - How harmful is Wx radar?
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Old 3rd Aug 2009, 11:14
  #17 (permalink)  
ampclamp
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Skating away on the thin ice of a new day.
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I think I posted before most modern wxr's are 100 watts up the stick or so whereas the older gen stuff could be tens of thousands of watts and definitely will do some damage with extended/nearby exposure.

Also do not discount the ERP with 100 watts concentrated into a 3 degree lobe which will give you an effective radiation of thousands of watts, so be careful no matter what.

Last time I looked wxr was in the in the order of around 13 gigahertz.
Well above microwave ovens therefore much smaller wavelength at around 2 to 2.5 cm I think. Still much bigger than cellular level but still worth caution.

Someone mentioned DME .
Indeed, lower freq around a gigahertz but quite a hi peak power ~ 500watts.
Rad alt is around 4.3 gig If I remember correctly.Lower power but still up there in freq and I think worth avoiding where possible.

On the tarmac we are constantly being bombarded with all manner of RF signals.Some at close range.
I'm not convinced we are killing ourselves any quicker with RF and i think we have other more immediate OH&S issues like air quality and chemical exposure.I'm in the "less is likely better" camp.

Also I think some folks do confuse radio freq radiation with nuclear radiation. 2 different things altogether.
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