Because waveguide is like a tuned, hallow, pipe to carry microwave energy to the antenna for emission. It's fairly thin metal with a rectangular cross section. The SPA-49 Air Search Radar in question has a peak power of 360 thousand watts. If you were to point that much microwave energy directly at your torso, it'd boil and vaporize the water in your body and you would literally explode in the worst case. Yes, it is very clearly marked as "non-load bearing"...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (11 children)

I was a radarman in the army. As far as i’m aware uncollimated radar doesn’t do a whole lot even at really high power since it isn’t ionizing. If it did then sidelobe radiation would be a seriously problem for anyone near the antenna. Feel free to correct me with sources as it’s been almost two decades since i touched a radar but i don’t think it would be a big a problem as you say. Expensive to fix, sure. Probably not instantly deadly though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Ionizing just means whether or not it causes cancer etc. Power is still power. Meaning if it points at you, you are cooked.

Please note that you are more transparent to some wavelengths than others. E.g. the water heating microwaves are particularly nasty. But you might be transparent to others (e.g. XRay, Warning: that's ionizing so unsafe)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

First paragraph is entirely nonsense, second paragraph is more accurate.

EM/matter interaction is what you are concerned with. The type of interaction is dependent on the substance and the frequency of the EM field. It's perfectly possible to have extremely high amplitude radiation with no interaction, so the idea that you would get "cooked" regardless is complete nonsense.

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