Chapter 340: Radio Blobs

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 (Continued)

Ava's and my first stop was at the local cop station, where Ava asked for a demonstration of a speed radar. I was sitting in my car parked where the cops wouldn't see me. Ava would never be suspected of being the angel - her bumps being in the wrong places - but I could, so I was avoiding being seen doing ANYTHING unusual. The cops thought Ava's request was strange, but there wasn't much they wouldn't do for anyone in our families. Walking outside their front door and showing a pretty multimillionaire how a radar gun worked wasn't one of them.

Radar guns use the K-band. Above the K-band is the Ka-band (the "a" is for "above", radar being a masculine science), which is used for very short-range work, such as triggering a camera to photograph the license plate of cars that jump a red lights. I was probably being excessive, but I wanted to include the Ka-band in my detection range, but we don't have any such radars in Corvallis. The radar gun's K-band was the closest I could find for now. I'll look for a Ku-band transmitter later (if you're a guy, you'll have no trouble guessing what the "u" stands for. If you are a guy and you do have trouble guessing, stop spending so much time with females; it's making it harder for you to UNDERstand simplicity).

During Ava's demonstration, I was easily able to dial my sight blob into the radar gun's frequency. Once I had it, I ordered my mind to detect frequencies ranging from an 'inch' above that frequency through to an inch below "B" on our L-band radar at home. That wouldn't include the UHF-band (it's on the other side of the L-band), but I was only casually interested in that since it had no chance of detecting the angel and UHF-radar wasn't used by movable military units. I'd find a UHF transmitter one day soon - probably by calling around the local radio and TV stations - but it didn't matter for now. I ordered that the top half of the newly determined range be mapped to the shade of red I was going to use for the K-band group, and the bottom half mapped to the color I'd be using for the L-band.

I tapped Ava on the shoulder when I'd gotten all the calibration I needed. She gave the cop a kiss on the cheek (she was probably taking out a little insurance because she likes to drive fast), then she headed back to me.

#14: <Military units use UHF and VHF for radio communications, don't they?>

#12: <GOOD point! I think they do, and that might be VERY useful. It might be the first warning of someone sneaking up on us. Let's stay here for another couple of minutes so we can capture all the frequencies they use.>

[I'll carry on describing the radar calibration I was doing now, but I also allocated a few more colors for different communication bands, especially to distinguish those used by law enforcement and military communications. It was easy to do, as those bands are clearly documented online and I was tending to see a lot of law enforcement and military people these days.]

After the cops, I drove us to Corvallis's airport, parking near it and doing various calibrations. It's a small airport - there's no control tower, for example - so I was surprised by how many radio sources there were around the place.

^

Now would be a good time to describe what seeing radio frequencies is like. For the sake of clarity, I'll cheat a little, describing aspects that became evident only after my sight was better calibrated.

Let me start by reminding you that I can't decipher ANY meaning from these transmissions. Apart from anything else, these radio waves had frequencies of millions or billions of cycles per second, and there's NO WAY my brain can see light flickering that fast. A few dozen cycles per second is all it takes for our brains to believe the light is continuous (our eyes and brains work chemically, which can't come close to performing millions of operations per second). And even if I could detect the radio pulses, there are all sorts of protocols, encryptions, unsymmetrical distortions (FM broadcasts have their highest frequency components transmitted with greater power than their lower frequencies, for example), and probably a dozen other problems I don't know about. All I see is a single color of light.

There are three types of sources:

1. Focused transmissions, such as the radar gun. I have to position a sight blob in front of the transmitters to see if they are operating.

2. Omni-directional transmissions. Most transmissions are undirected, expanding in a sphere.

3. Reflections. Whatever the original source, frequencies bounced off various things (VHF-band radiation penetrates wood easily, while K-band bounces off wood like it's polished steel).

To discuss the third point first. The highly 'bouncy' frequencies are all around me, giving the world a red tinge in the visual processing center I'm using with the "Radio Blob" ("Radio Blob" rather than "Radar Blob", as I've enlarged its job description). Unless I'm near a source, there is much less of the bouncy frequency light than you might expect because such frequencies dissipate and are absorbed quickly.

The 'un-bouncy' frequencies only bounced off very solid objects, primarily metal, so metal often has a red sheen, with the shade of red I have allocated to these frequencies. If I'm looking in a direction where there isn't any metal, then I usually don't see any of that shade of red.

The important thing about reflections is how weak they are. Unless the source is nearby or particularly strong, the reflections are so dim they're ignorable. It's like wearing glasses with very slightly colored lenses,

Focused transmissions are obvious. It's like having a flashlight or a searchlight shining at me - depending on how much power they're putting out - so it's hard not to notice.

There are very few focused transmitters, and it's even less likely that my radio blob would be in the beam of one. Omni-directional transmissions are by far the most common. They include such things as cellphone signals to and from the phones, TV and radio broadcasts, some computer frequencies (e.g., wifi, bluetooth), GPS from several satellites, and many others. Strictly speaking, satellite signals aren't omni-directional as they're beamed at just the Earth, but they spread so wide that they seem omni-directional most of the time.

There were confusingly many red color sources after I'd expanded the range just after the radar gun's demonstration, as that had widened my mapped frequency range enough to include MANY in-use frequencies, but that only affected those minds that wanted to pay attention to the visual processing center that the radio blob was using. The mind that was driving the car was using the visual center my real eyes were sending information to. In other words, I wasn't overwhelmed because I could isolate the radio blob's activities and interpretations from everything else I was doing, removing all the pressure and giving me time to get used to it.

It would've been impossible for me to untangle all those frequencies, except that I could often see the sources. When someone's cellphone started glowing red, I knew it was transmitting. Or I could send the sight blob up into the air until the source shone bright red, then send the blob to find out what that was (e.g., someone with a ham radio in their attic). Many of the sources were identifiable and then ignorable. Some were so invariably constant (such as TV stations and geosynchronous satellites) that I considered ordering my radio blob not to map those exact frequencies into my visual range, but I decided to leave them active. They were easily ignored and one of those frequencies might be important when I was somewhere other than Corvallis.

Once I had several sources identified in the easy ways, I could slide my dial between known sources to estimate the frequency of the mystery ones. Then some googling usually supplied the explanation of what that segment of band was allocated for. Sometimes google would hit on the exact frequency, so I could read about the specific cause, such as a local radio station that transmitted its program on that frequency.

I didn't really need to identify sources around Corvallis - especially in frequency ranges which were obviously not radars or bugs in my home - but it was an exercise worth doing as it taught me a great deal about who and what emit transmissions of various types. That information could be useful one day, and it was interesting in its own right.

I ended up with several additional color assignments - from red through orange and into yellow - to differentiate the sources that I wanted to know about. I also added blinking to the important ones, to make sure they got my attention (subconsciouses are wonderful for taking care of thousands of tiny details).

^

Ava and I drove north to Portland's airport, which is far larger than our local one.

Soon after we started heading north, I remembered that my body uses energy differently than other people's, and wondered whether I'd appear differently in infrared. I created an appropriately tuned sight blob and used it to look at Ava and myself. To my surprise, from the neck down Ava's and my bodies radiated heat very similarly. [[My torso radiated as much as anyone else, as my deep subconscious minds were already creating heat internally to regulate my body's temperature. That adjustment had been made very soon after my latest merges. They had reduced the amount of food my body burned for fuel, which had also lowered my body temperature, which was a bad thing because there are an amazing number of mammalian biochemical reactions which start failing if bodies get outside of a very narrow temperature range. Because of their heat sensitivity, mammal bodies contain many mechanisms to regulate heat, and subconsciouses are aware of the issue. My subconsciouses automatically responded, but not so much in my head or limbs because they're less dependent on remaining in a narrow temperature range.]]

It was our heads that looked particularly different; Ava's radiating more heat than mine (a disproportionately large proportion of normal humans' heat radiation comes out of heads, but not mine). That the difference was noticeable was a worry because it meant that ever since I'd started getting a significant proportion of my energy needs from the Universe, I would've looked suspiciously unusual to any infrared camera. Even worse, Ron Fisher and Archangel Michael's host were the only two humans on the planet whose heads would radiate such little heat (the angel's costume wasn't insulative, so that didn't provide an excuse). If someone spotted that coincidence, I could be in hot water. It'd be VERY hot water if, when he arrives, the new Mark Anderson ("Mark2") was spotted having the same 'uniquely' cool head.

I obviously had to park a heat blob inside my head and have it radiate enough heat that my head looked the same as other people's. The question was which of my three heads do I do that to: Ron's, Archangel Michael's and/or Mark2's? Certainly Ron's because he has to appear boringly normal, but who else's? When I'm flying around at night I don't want to be radiating more heat because that would make me easier to locate and track, so I wouldn't use such a heat blob when I'm being covert, but what about when I'm being overt as the angel? I didn't want the angel to appear similar to Mark2 because that'd make people suspect they were the same. That meant either Mark2 had to use a heat blob for the rest of his life, or Archangel Michael did. Given that Archangel Michael wasn't going to be around for long, that was the easiest choice to make. Mark2 was going to be known as having an usual body chemistry, so that would be the excuse for his being coolheaded.

I spent most of the rest of the trip finding the correct setting for my head's internal heat blob. I set it for a low temperature, then kept an infrared eye on my head, watching it slowly increase in temperature as the heat penetrated it. After several minutes, when it had stopped getting hotter - the input from the heat blob being equaled by the head's extra heat radiation - I compared my head to Ava's, saw it wasn't hot enough yet, so cranked up the heat blob a smidgen. It took quite a while for my head to reach thermal equilibrium after each adjustment, but we were on a long drive so it didn't matter. I eventually arrived at the right setting.

[When I returned home, I compared my head to those of the rest of my families - in case Ava's was unusual for some reason - but they were close enough to being equally radiative, depending on how much hair they had. I thereafter centrally heated my head whenever I was Ron or in public as Archangel Michael. In my subsequent déjà vu's, I made sure the other Marks were aware of the need to manage our body temperature better.]

[Within a few days, my considerable concern about having the Government or military connect my various personae through our heat differences having been noted by my subconsciouses, they responded by regulating my entire body's temperature more carefully. I was still using infrared sensing sight blobs to check my heat output and noticed that having a heat blob in my head was making it too warm, so I dialed the blob down. Then dialed it down further. Then canceled it.]

^

I'll abbreviate the description of the rest of my calibration trip.

Portland airport gave me several calibration opportunities, with radars being the most important. I got more samples, but had the same overall experience as at Corvallis.

The last thing I did before leaving that airport was to raise my body into their air traffic control beam while I was close enough to see their radar display. As I expected, I didn't appear because they were using a band that penetrated flesh too well. That was a little freaky to think about, but wonderful news. The sky is FULL of radar signals in that band. If they can't detect me at a range of four hundred feet, then I can fly around at high altitudes again.

While in Portland, I did some communications radio calibrating around the FBI and DHS offices, as well as confirming that Portland police used the same frequencies as the Corvallis cops.

After that we drove east to the nearest meteorological radar that I'd identified from the US coverage map. These were the transmitters that worried me the most, other than the worry I had about the generic "Military Radars".

I snooped the met' radar carefully, seeing that, like our radar at home, it had two settings. I got the frequency values from their instrumentation, adjusted my radio blob into the frequency the station was currently transmitting, then twitched their dial so I could dial-in the other frequency. That caused the operator to leap to his feet to fix it, and it no doubt puzzled him, but it didn't seem like much of a risk to me. I got both of their frequencies pegged. The water-sensing radars have to use a frequency that bounces off non-solid objects, which makes them bounce off flesh too (flesh being mostly water), so getting these radars pegged was very important.

I didn't bother to give a specific color to the met' radar's output. ANY radars from the C-, X- and K-bands worry me greatly because they can detect flesh, so I'll be steering a path around all of those. S-band radars can theoretically pick up flesh, but only just. S-band's normal use is for air traffic control and long-range weather radar; long-range because its beam penetrates well, including through me. An S-band radar that REALLY pumps out the power might get a usable return from me so I'll be careful of them when they're very bright (within in a few days I should have every band color mapped accurately, so I'll know what I'm dealing with when I'm flying around). The next band beyond S was L, which couldn't see me, but a moving L-band transmitter would be a nice giveaway of a radiating aircraft.

Meteorological radar stations were too far apart for Ava and me to drive to another one tonight, but how good my radio blob was at seeing radar had given me an idea for an experiment I wanted to do which required our going home and then coming back to this station. One of the VERY nice things about radars is that their signals attenuate in both directions: from the transmitter to me, and from me back to the receiver. By an inverse square law too, so the rate of attenuation is substantial. Because the signal is stronger at me than at the receiver, I might be able to detect it better than it can detect me, depending on the relative sensitivity of their receiver versus my blob. That's what I wanted to find out. If a max-size radio blob was as sensitive as I hoped it was, I'll be able to fly along seeing transmitters before they can see me, and then diverting around them. I'll be able to wend my way to my destination. I might fly into some boxed-in areas and have to backtrack to go around them, if I can't get through by flying low enough, but I'll soon learn some suitable corridors for flying across the country.

Ava was happy to keep being helpful, so we drove home, collected the equipment we needed - a video camera tied to a broom handle, a pair of binoculars, our cellphones, and complete body and face coverings for both of us - then I very carefully flew us back to the meteorological site.

Such radars aren't high security and it was in a usefully remote area, so this would be easy. We flew toward the station from an uninhabited direction and at ground level. We were moving quickly, but only a few feet above the ground. We ran the last few yards, apart from the 'jump' over the fence. Ava positioned herself under the right window, turned the camera on, zoomed it in as far as it went, and raised the stick it was mounted on. The camera's LCD screen was facing down, so when the camera was high enough to see through the window, Ava could aim it at the radar display. Using binoculars, Ava could see the LCD screen clearly, letting her observe the radar image. Confirming that arrangement worked, she lowered the stick until I was ready. I left her, rushing to get into my position as quickly as possible to minimize her exposure.

The meteorological radars are sited roughly 150 to 180 miles apart, and their rain detection coverage areas barely overlap. Let's err on the high side and say they have a 90-mile range. I'm denser than rain, but a great deal smaller than the cubic miles rain occupies, so their range for detecting me should be considerably less than 90 miles. I flew away at low-level to be about 40 miles away.

I landed and called Ava (her phone was on vibrate), telling her, "I'm ready. Raise the stick. I'm at about 200 degrees. Look about where 7 o'clock is, but halfway back to the center because that's how far away I am. Okay?"

"Yeah. I understand. Okay, the stick's up and I can see fine."

"I'm doing my thing now. Let me know if something appears." Our language was a bit vague just in case our calls were been recorded. We had no particular suspicion, but maybe the Government are liars and are recording everyone's cellphone calls.

I floated three hundred feet up in the air facing toward the station in an upright posture to maximize my radar echo back to it. That was also why I was happy to be carrying my cellphone: I wanted to know how easy I was to detect in a reasonably likely worst-case scenario. Three hundred feet was almost certainly higher than I needed to go because the beam's intensity had seemed constant since I'd got above one hundred feet, but I wanted to maximize its chance of detecting me. As that says, I could see the station's radar beam. I could see it VERY easily with the max-sized radio blob I had going. I nearly always fly with a max-sized sight blob because I fly at night, so I wanted to get a feel for the radio input with the same-sized blob.

^

I've simplified the previous paragraph a little. In the pursuit of accuracy I should explain that weather radars actually aim upward at a certain angle, scan around themselves, raise the angle, scan again, etc., until they've scanned the highest angle they want, then they restart the cycle. Scanning in a narrow band concentrates the power of the output, giving them a better image. The angles are low, starting from 0 degrees (horizontal) and rising to about 5 degrees in roughly 1-degree increments. I only noticed because the changes in angle were so abrupt that one minute I'd be in a strong beam, and the next minute it'd be passing entirely over my head. I had to choose the right times to conduct each of my experiment's little tests, but it was easy to allow for. I'll ignore this complication in the following description. In case you think of it, flying high would very likely keep me safe from met' radars because they don't point upward enough, but I still need to take off and land, and I often have reasons to prefer flying at low altitudes, so I needed to learn this stuff.

By the way, my terminology is unfortunately somewhat misleading. It shouldn't make you think that radio, sight and light blobs are independent and distinct from each other. Radio blobs can not only function as sight blobs, they probably always will, because there's no benefit in cutting off the visible spectrum. Sight blobs can also function as light blobs, just by getting them to emit. It's close enough to say that functionally speaking, "Radio blobs > sight blobs > light blobs," with the complication that radio and sight blobs might not be radiating any light. Sorry about the confusion, but I'm giving you the terminology that I use and I always know what I mean by the terms. If you can manage my use of "Nipple Power" you should be able to adapt to "Radio Blob".

^

Ava said, "I don't think I can see you yet."

"I'll go down and up a few times to make sure."

I bobbed up and down four times. The down direction had to take me back to the ground. I was doing this behind a small rise so I was in the shadow of the beam when on the ground. There was still a very small amount of it hitting me, but only from atmospheric scatter and it was far too weak to matter.

Ava repeated, "I can't see anything."

"Okay, I'll try the second idea. Keep watching." That was for me to stay high and fly closer (I didn't want to say that over my phone!). I should appear eventually.

I flew reasonably quickly toward the station, about the speed of a car so my open cellphone call wouldn't register as noteworthy. I wasn't worried about letting the radar get a return off me because it wouldn't last long and they wouldn't learn anything useful from it. Not even that the angel had appeared momentarily, as there had to be many more likely explanations for a momentary blip.

The beam slowly got brighter, and three minutes later, when I was about 20 miles from the station, Ava said, "Now! I think I can see you."

"I'll bob again. Let me know exactly when you lose and gain me."

"Okay. This is exciting."

#4: <It'll be a lot more exciting if she's discovered.>

The plan for that is for her to tell me if someone spots her, and I'll swoop in at full speed and pick her up. It'd only take a few seconds and leave the person who briefly caught her with a great story. I didn't want it to happen, but it was worth the risk because I needed to confirm my hypothesis about radar detection ranges versus my radio blob's sensitivity.

I had to get down to about 40 feet AGL before Ava said I'd disappeared from the screen, which was disappointingly lower than I'd hoped before we'd started this experiment. I'd been hoping for something like 100 feet, but never mind. I could fly nape of the earth if I needed to, although it'd be slower and a nuisance. It shouldn't need to fly under one of these things very often, probably only when there was one near my destination.

I popped up again, and Ava confirmed I was back on screen.

"Thanks. I'll come get you now. You can lower the stick."

It took me a couple of minutes to get there at a cautious approach speed. Collecting Ava took no time at all, and then we were on our way home.

I was extremely happy with the three results from this experiment. From least to most wonderful: The 40-foot "under the radar" safe height, the 20-mile detection range, and my radio blob's ability to see the radar beams LONG before the radar station could detect me.

The 40-foot safety height would depend on the ground's contour and would reduce as I got closer to the station, but I could fly at FOUR feet AGL if I wanted to. Having a few dozen feet to work with meant I could fly fairly rapidly so it wouldn't take long to get far enough away that I could raise my altitude and speed.

The radar picking me up at a range of 20 miles was great. Radar detection ranges are linearly proportional to the target's cross-sectional area. By lying flat when I fly, like I usually do, my side area would reduce by a factor of approximately 2.5, giving a detection range of about 8 miles. If I needed to, I could even point my body directly at the station, reducing my area by a factor of at least 5, giving a detection range of less than 4 miles.

Comparing the excessively conservative 20-mile detection range (which assumes I'm standing upright, facing the station and carrying a cellphone), with the 95% land area coverage with a 90-mile rain-detection range, then the angel-detection coverage area is (20/90)^2 x 95% = 4.7%. So for angels the country is 95% NOT covered! I can't quite ignore the problem, but going around the meteorological stations is going to be very easy.

As I nearly always fly lying on my sled, the 8-mile detection radius will nearly always apply, making the coverage area (8/90)^2 x 95% = 0.75%. I could probably find a straight-line course to DC! I'll stick to my safe, 20-mile assumption, because that still leaves me able to fly almost unconstrained. Sub-1% coverage is probably the reality of the process though, which might explain why no one seems to have reacted to all my Majestic Countdown and other flights.

There are radars that aren't part of the National Weather Service, but that organization has the largest network of meteorological radars. With theirs and everyone else's combined, I still won't have any problem avoiding them while still getting to my destinations easily.

I didn't know how many radars the military had, but other than meteorological and the bird radars installed at airbases, I can't think of any reason why they'd have angel-detecting radars in operation.

Whatever radars are in use, I'll easily detect them in time to evade them. That's the best and most wonderful result of the experiment: my max-sized radio blob detected the radar emissions FAR better than the radar station's receiver could pick up my return signal, giving me warning tens of miles before I'd be within their detection range.

I need to be a little cautious about that, because the different radar bands have different operational parameters. If I flew right into the middle of a short-range Ku-band radar at top speed, I MIGHT have trouble braking and diverting in time. I don't think I would, but I might (I don't know where one is to test myself against). It's extremely unlikely I'll encounter one though, as their range is so limited, probably well under a mile for detecting me. Even if I was picked up once or twice, it wouldn't provide the authorities with enough information to statistically analyze my likely base of operations.

The other possible risk was a radar station that was turned on when I was already within range, but once again, this was so unlikely that at worst it might only happen once or twice.

Unless the military installs at least a thousand flesh-sensing radars across the country, my ability to fly around isn't going to be particularly constrained. I won't even need to fly low to take advantage of ground clutter (flying behind ridges, for example), as I understand the physics well enough to be confident that I'll see a detection threat from any of the radar bands in plenty of time.

Another wonderful consequence of my being able to see radar emissions from such long distances is that I can now fly into clouds or rain and avoid becoming disoriented by using radar sources to keep my bearings, especially the longer wavelength radars like those of air traffic control because they cover the country so well and go straight through rain. I'll be able to fly straighter lines than before because I'll no longer need to divert around poor weather. I will need to curve somewhat to avoid getting too close to flesh-sensing radars, but weather is a far more common problem, so my travel times will improve. I'll also no longer have to worry about my departure or arrival locations being obscured. That had several times caused Majestic Countdown to divert to another city to do his leak research.

I made a mental note to make sure that all the other Mark Andersons I déjà vu from now on are aware of the wonderful, new radio blobs.

Now that I can avoid ground-based radars so safely and easily, it's only air-based radars or air-based visual observation that worry me much. Air-based radars would be a nuisance as I'd have to get rid of them before I could go home. Air-based visual (including infrared) observation is scary as I'd have no way of knowing it was being done. The various techniques I'd used on my flight across Canada would be my best defense against those.