At 09:53 AM 5/2/00 -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>This sounds kinda like the device I built some 11 years ago, tho I used
>several
>microwave oven type magnetrons ('boosted' of course) and some good sized
>charge
>capacitors . Word to you: don't try to patent it if you are in the US. The
>military looks on such ECM weapons as national security stuff, and will
>confiscate your patent application and any devices you have (been there, done
>that). I recommend you simply sew as much stuff up in epoxy embedded boxes,
>chips, etc..along with use licenses in any sales.
Hard to patent something with so much prior art, at least if you attempt to
do it within the spirit of the patent laws...
Our devices are lightweight and have a high rep rate. We use an inverter
and multiplier to charge up a fairly small capacitor and discharge it at
the natural firing rate of the cap, a spark gap, and a pulse forming
network. We get about 2000 W peak pulsed from the typical microwave oven
maggie. Pulse width is around 1 ms. The original request was from the
Border Patrol and the Coast Guard - needing a method of killing outboard
motors on fast smuggler's boats. They never pursued the query.
It's much more fun to use ex-WWII radar magnetrons and modern rare earth
magnets. Peak powers of 750 kW are pretty easy to obtain, and the whole
works fits into a standard tool box, weight about 8 kg. Operating time
using NiCd batteries is about 5 minutes of total output.
We've been issued a patent for the direct contact device - even sold a
couple to the Army and the Navy (!), but no orders came of it. We've sold
to the British Defense Ministry, the Japanese Police, and the Israeli
Police. The Japanese evidently could not figure out how to use the gadget -
they thought setting it on the hood of a stopped car would allow them to
stop the motor. I guess the cops over there just don't understand the
Faraday cage idea.
At present our patent is on the examiner's desk - another Beltway Bandit
outfit, Jaycor of Colorado, had filed a very bad clone of our application,
complete with misquoted physics - and that constitutes an "interference".
So it's anyone's guess when or if we will win the fight there.
We have been through the unclassified areas of the Army Research Labs in
Maryland - the Army has lots of HERF stuff sitting around, apparently they
have abandoned directed microwaves as a weapon - at least publicly.
Chuck Kuecker
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:10:21 MDT