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Find power cables by their 60Hz emissions... |
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Unfortunately, not completely practical for 60 Hz. That means a wavelength of (scribble scribble) about 5 km, and you will need antennae of around that size to image a source. If you find a way around the diffraction limit, you should patent it as lots of folks will be interested. |
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Land's idea sees the RF, while Egnor described seeing the inverse, the RF shadows. Some limited combinations of the two are probably actually possible (in their band, eg, 2.4GHz) with a set of collaborating wireless PDAs.
"Of course, what I *really* want is a
headset I can put on that will let me visually *see* these signals. Using wireless gadgets, I often feel like a blind man with a photometer. I develop all sorts of voodoo about how different kinds of walls block various transmissions, and
`shadows' and `reflections' and `multipath', and the locations of towers and the directionality of their antennas and so on... for once, I'd like to put on some glasses and *see* all this stuff." |
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: egnor, Nov 21 2000 in "keychain" |
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Does the 60 Hz thing generate higher harmonics? |
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Mu cursory search to see if my idea had been proposed was not cursory enough - here it is.
So - I addend my thoughts. These goggles would generate a monochromatic field, sort of like night vision goggles. There is a boatload of information contained in RF transmission - whole TV shows, conversations, etc. Probably the same sort of variations are in the visible spectrum, but our eye smooths it out to the info we can use. |
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It is interesting not note that there are places that get no reception - occasionally there are "ghost" signals bounced off a building, and so on. By artificially coloring the landscape with these emissions we could see how these waves are bouncing around. It would be cool! |
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I remember reading about some radio sensitive goggles that the Air Force had developed for field testing the radar-reflecting surfaces of stealth bombers. I think it was in Popular Mechanics or something, but I'm not sure. |
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I bet something like this could also be useful for archeologists using ground-penetrating radar, or SWAT teams using radar "flashlights" to see through walls. |
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Radar flashlights! Very cool app! |
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