[HN Gopher] K340A: The Brain Computer of Chernobyl Duga Radar [v...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       K340A: The Brain Computer of Chernobyl Duga Radar [video]
        
       Author : admp
       Score  : 60 points
       Date   : 2024-09-16 20:21 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | OedipusRex wrote:
       | This sounds like something you'd run across in the Zone.
        
         | a-dub wrote:
         | fancy a picnic?
        
       | zikduruqe wrote:
       | That's the Russian Woodpecker. It would wreak havoc on the HF
       | bands.
        
         | Animats wrote:
         | Right. This gives us a glimpse of the control systems trying to
         | get useful data out of it.
        
         | dekhn wrote:
         | I started watching the movie "Divergent" and it's reused to be
         | the security fence
         | (https://divergent.fandom.com/wiki/The_Fence)
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | That's a strange machine. It's too bad so little is known about
       | how it attached to the rest of the radar system. It's clearly a
       | special purpose machine, one with manually programmed ROMs, built
       | to do a very specific task. But what? Did it beam-steer the
       | radar? Process the returns? The special-purpose I/O gear that
       | must have been present is gone. The console is clearly just a
       | programming and debug console, not something for seeing what the
       | radar was seeing.
       | 
       | The US's main over the horizon radar of that era was Cobra
       | Mist.[1] It never really worked well. Too much interference,
       | supposedly. Trying to bounce radar off the ionosphere is
       | inherently iffy. The US instead deployed line of sight radar
       | chains, such as BMEWS. This required sites strung across northern
       | Canada, but worked.
       | 
       | More modern over the horizon radars do work, but have much more
       | compute power behind them.
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_Mist
        
       | mzs wrote:
       | photos: https://www.arcanumurbex.de/photos/military-
       | objects/duga-1-r...
        
       | petertodd wrote:
       | You used to be able to easily visit the Duga Radar, legally, via
       | one of the many tour companies that offered Chernobyl tours. Back
       | in 2018 I visited myself, I believe with this company, as part of
       | a conference: https://chernobyl-
       | tour.com/tours_to_the_chernobyl-2_duga-1_e... At least then
       | Chernobyl had been turned into quite the tourist destination with
       | enough tours running that there even was a giftshop at the main
       | checkpoint.
       | 
       | Unfortunately due to the proximity to the Russian/Belarus borders
       | the whole area is closed right now due to Russia's invasion
       | (Russia even occupied Chernobyl briefly). But it'll probably
       | reopen sooner or later.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-09-16 23:00 UTC)