RE: RE: starship-design: It's a bad, bad world out there

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

On Wednesday, October 29, 1997 12:22 AM, KellySt@aol.com 
[SMTP:KellySt@aol.com] wrote:
>
> You have to remember, the whole continental power grid is syncronized and
> pulsing at 60 cycles per secound, with trillions of watts of power
> flowing
> through it.  Other EM sources lack the power, but are in frequencies that
> little else is in.  One quote I remember was that earth out shines the 
sun
> in
> certain EM bands.  Anyone interested in looking should have little
> difficulting seeing Earth em glow (and wouldn't limit themselves to a
> little
> 3,000 meter scope).
>
Well, actually, I don't think the whole continental power grid is running 
at 60 Hz, although almost all of the smaller delivery trunks are I'm sure. 
Either way, I don't think that it would make any difference. We picked 60 
Hz arbitrarily and even if it was to be detected the receiver wouldn't have 
any idea why it was significant.

Not only does the rest of the world run at different settings but the 
normal fluctuations from day to night puts another harmonic on it so what 
they will get is a really weird pulsar effect rather than something 
immediately recognizable as artificial. On top of this, the power grid may 
be transmitting trillions of watts (in this country at least) but it isn't 
leaking anywhere close to that amount.

I don't know for sure, if anybody has exact numbers on what the leakage is 
and how much is EMISSIVE RADIATION - not just heat please post them. Which 
brings us back to range, just how far does 60 Hz EM radiation carry anyway?

Lee