Quote:
Originally Posted by moltuae
Have you ever held a fluorescent tube under a powerline? Pretty cool to see them glow, if a little unnerving ...
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Back when I worked on RAF radio and radar installations (as a civvie contractor) we used to use tubes to test the polarisation of antenna arrays. Hold it vertically and it lights up, horizontally and it doesn't, or the other way round. That was important in things with a confined beam like the glide slope, and a lot simpler to use than the proper machine!
We had a portable radar installation (portable in an ISO container) which would make a tube flash every time the horn came round. We also discovered that the 2.5KW of microwave energy it emitted would cook pigeons if they landed on the horn while it wasn't rotating
There were quite a lot of interlocks to disable to make it transmit without rotating, and a note saying don't stand in front of it while doing so.