"invisible radio wave"
Whed have radio waves not been invisible to the naked eye?
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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In the beta test of Earth. Luckily they realised how much that fucks with us and reverted the change.
this makes me nostalgic for r/outside.
What? You don’t have Doppler vision? Pffff.
Light is also an electromagnetic wave, just like radio
I think it was just emphasizing that it's an invisible weapon, not quantifying.
I hope you know them all, man
Oh, you didn't have to edit your comment. I was joking and didn't meant to shame you. It's good for building vocab for us ESLs so I did appreciate it.
I just edited it to fix a typo (emohasizing)
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Much better than those visible radio waves.
Also known as "light", as used in Lasers, which also works to knock down drones.
Radio waves are a specific wavelength/band of the EM spectrum. Light is not radio waves, just as radiowaves aren't light. Microwaves are another specific wavelength.
They're both electromagnetic waves.
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So when can we start shipping them to Ukraine? Even from a selfish perspective its a perfect environment to field test this.
I would imagine that a demonstration unit has already been sent
Warzone's always the best environment to test new battlefield systems.
Look at the difference in technology between the beginning of the first world war and the end. We started off with essentially standing in fields shooting each other over distances you could spit, and ended up with tanks. The second world war gave us nukes.
Will probably have AGI battle droids by the end of this war.
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It uses high frequency radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside drones, causing them to crash or malfunction.
At a range of 1km…
That‘s useful not just for drones. I wonder if this works against helicopters, too.
Seriously this! People don't understand that even hobby drones at a certain price point have robust rf shielding.
More like: That could be useful, just not for (perhaps many) drones.
1km isn't that far - the drones that were used for surveillance of Minneapolis protests in 2020 were around 6km up.
If they needed to get close for some reason, would a 1km deterrent be countered enough by approaching from directly above and using gravity for the last km?
The drones used in Ukraine are basically just commercial drones with grenades strapped to them. And a 1 km distance they're unlikely to be able to damage a target even if they detonated.
It sounds like it's a directed microwave cooker. Works on people too, just not ones behind good cover.
Edit: ah, high frequency, my bad, it's a gamma gun. Same principles apply I think, give or take the cover.
They are definitely not blasting gamma rays to bring down drones lol. "radio" is a specific range of frequencies so "high frequency radio" is just frequencies at the higher end of that specific range.
Gamma rays are insanely dangerous. I'm too lazy to do calculations/research to back this up but I suspect that gamma rays intense enough to reliably drop a drone would also give cancer/radiation poisoning to anyone remotely downrange (and also the operators). Furthermore, I don't think we have a way to produce gamma rays in any high intensity in the lab. matter-antimatter annihilation and fusion bombs are the only way I know of for humans to produce gamma rays. The former can only be done at atomic scale in the lab and the latter is, well, I guess that also destroys drones (and everything else within 100km)
High frequency radio is still below the visible part of the spectrum, gamma is waaay above it.
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This is massive. Hope the detail leak so we can use this in the revolution.
Step 1: take the magnetron out of a microwave oven
Step 2: ...
UK tech is always invented by weirdo boffins in a shed so they already told everyone in the local how it works.
Anybody know if it has a phased array antenna? a) those are cool b) they can aim much faster than an antenna that needs to physically pivot
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Everyones got this... It was obvious
This isn't just jamming signals, it's microwaving the electronics from a kilometer away so it will work against fibre optic controlled drones as well
Why does that title sound like it's out of a 1940's war reel?
Possibly because it's presented how news used to be - a simple statement of fact without embellishment or click bait.
Would you rather:
You won't BELIEVE how this weapon built by British boffins can yeet hundreds of Russian drones from the sky in seconds
UK slams dozens of drones with invisible radio waves
UK blasts rays of DEATH to doomed drones
I wager the word "radio" also helps. Early 1900s would have had plenty of radio broadcasts being "the thing" going on, so that word probably helps prime the interpretation, even if not used in quite the same way.
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