Reply to post: Re: dubious

Hell hath no fury like a radar engineer scorned

EveryTime

Re: dubious

It likely had a highly directional ("high gain") antenna. It could well have been focused enough to trigger a flash cube or flash bulb even with very modest power on the other side of the attenuator.

As for the difference between an attenuator and a dummy load, a 70 dB attenuator with a cap on the output would make for a quite good dummy load. So it was likely that one device was used for both purposes.

I wasn't able to find a reference for the field strength necessary to trigger a flash bulb. Presumably some sailors had discovered the effect accidentally, and passed down the knowledge for just this type of opportunity.

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