'Better than the old pirate Mexican radio stations,' Michaels said,
smiling.
'By a factor of about seventy thousand,' Morrison said, returning the
smile.
'So it's a very powerful system. And ... ?'
'And there are several things we've learned along the way. Research
has been primarily in four areas: communications, such as with
extremely low frequency waves, or ELF, for such things as contacting
submarines in the depths; tomography--the ability to see great
distances underground--and even the possibility of some rudimentary
weather control. There have also been some experiments with pulse
generation, EMPto knock out enemy missile guidance systems, that sort
of thing.'
'Interesting.'
'Yes, it is. And as a by-product of the ELF research, the possibility
of affecting and altering bio rhythms of plant and animal life has been
... explored.'
Michaels frowned.
'You want to clarify that last part for me?'
'We've known for a long time that long-term radio-wave exposure can
affect people. Increased rates of cancer under power lines and the
like. Civilized people live in a virtual bath of non-ionizing
low-frequency waves everything electrical produces them. At HAARP,
certain areas of research involving the 0.5-to-40Hz frequencies, the
same ones that the human brain uses, have been experimented with.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning that the Navy and Air Force are very interested in the
possibility that HAARP could give them a nondestructive weapon
technology.'
Michaels leaned back in his chair.
'What, are we talking about mind control?'
'It is a possibility, though not yet feasible.'
This really was interesting.
'It's been a while since my last physics class. Dr. Morrison, but the
difference between hertz radio waves and megahertz is considerable,
isn't it? How is it that a transmitter that produces frequencies in
the--what was it? 2.8-to-10 MHz range--will do anything in the
0.5-to-40 Hz range?'
Morrison gave him a smile as might a professor discovering a bright
student who has picked up something the rest of the class missed.
'Ah, very good. Commander.
You are correct. A hertz is one cycle per second, a megahertz is a
million cycles per second. So in order for such high-frequency
broadcast energy to be, ah, stepped down by this magnitude requires a
considerable change in the length of the broadcasting antenna.
Generally speaking, an antenna must be as long as the wavelength it
transmits.
So 30 MHz waves would require a ten-meter antenna, and 30 Hz waves
would need about a thousand-kilometer antenna.'
