I hope you're happy: they've pulled the plug -- well, the diesel fuel line -- on HAARP. No more tornadoes, no more tsunamis, no more earthquakes, droughts, super-wet weather, nuclear-plant hiccups or alien landings: it's all spinning down to a dull, dreadful, sharknadoless calm. Yep, ring in the Millennium!
Right?
Oh, and why are we going to be HAARPless? Because the big gensets that run the thing don't run clean enough to meet the latest EPA standards and they didn't budget for upgrades. Uncle Sam's own enforcers shut his own experiment down.
Irony squared
ReplyDeleteI wonder what class of station that would be during Field Day.
ReplyDeleteEME on 40M. It's amazing what you can do once you blow a hole in that pesky ionosphere.
Sometimes I think this is how government will end...by chasing its own tail.
ReplyDeleteInstead of a QSL card, I got this wonderful long letter from a ham I had contacted. Really nice guy, very fun to chat with, but he sure didn't like HARP. He included a copy of an article he had written that blamed HARP for what he perceived as lousy propagation, compared to the old days.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't a ham during the old days, so I can't say how propagation has changed, but if it has decreased, I figure it's just that HARP was built and run during a period of steadily decreasing solar flux.
The fun will come if the flux starts rising again. Some would use the increased propagation in the decades to come as proof that HARP was indeed the culprit.
I wonder if there's a budget line for funds to bulldoze the project. If not, then it will just sit there.
ReplyDeleteThe thought of that much equipment succumbing to the elements tears at the fabric of my skinflint soul.
Let hams dismantle it. Problem solved.
ReplyDeleteAt least the High Altitude Artillery Research Project is safe.
ReplyDeleteWhat's that?
Cancelled in '66?
Well damn!
Yep, love the irony!!!
ReplyDelete