Chapter 4 DISCUSSION 4.1 GENERAL OPERATION OF THE SYSTEM At the onset of this experiment, great concern was expressed about the ability of the telemetering system to transmit information out of the highly ionized air expected to be encountered. One theoretical calculation indicated that the 1 watt of power radiated from the rocket antenna would be attenuated to the extent that information carried by itt would be below the noise level when received. Another calculation indicated the opposite. Both calculations were sensitive to small changes in the parameters assumed. Fieids as high as 3 « 10‘ r/hr were encountered with no apparent loss of information. Thus, this concern for the ability of the system to transmit through the highly ionized air seems unfounded. The system as a whole was made up of commercially available components, (the telemetering transmitters and receivers and the tape recorders) and newly developed experimental components (the rockets and radiation transducers). In general, the performance of the rockets, transducers, and tape recorders may be characterized as satisfactory; that of the transmitters and receivers was less than satisfactory in tnis particular, unusually rigorous service. The only difficulties experienced in the field with the transducers could be attributed to faulty pacxaging. Several transducers failed before they were installed in the rocket heads, probably because the compound in which the electronic components were potted shrunk and cracked the tubes. However, calibrating and testing the detectors before installing them in the rockets insured reliable units. Drift of the frequency of the transmitters necessitated operating the receivers with their automatic frequency-control circuits turned on so that the receivers might follow the changing frequencies of the transmitters. Asa result, two or three receivers occasionally locked on the same transmitter and duplicated the information. On other occasions, receivers changed from one transmitter to another during flight. These :ffects were due to the tact that a given carrier from one rocket could take control of two or more receivers when their automatic frequency controls were not locked onto a carrier. This capture of control could occur either during the launching period, before all the carriers were on the air, or during the flight period, generally as a result of a strong disturbance in the carrier previously controlling the receiver. A warm-up time of 12 hours or more was required to reduce appreciable drift in receiver frequency. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the Site Nan receiving station was unmanned during the shot. Since it was necessary to leave this station about 12 hours before shot time, its receiving equipment had to be turned on 24 hours before each shot. 4.2 ACTIVITY IN THE CLOUD To obtain a measure of the amount of gamma emitters in the cloud, it was necessary to convert roentgen intensity readings to curies of gamma emitters per unit volume. The roentgen activity at a given place in the clouds depends upon the number of photons being emitted per unit time per unit volume, the energy of the photons, and the density of the medium (function of altitude). The aumber of Mev per cubic meter per second produced in air containing C curies (In this treatment, it is arbitrarily assumed that there is one photon per disintegration, so a curie is to be taken to mean 3.7 < 10!° photons per second throughout the chapter.) of gamma emitters per cubic meter of an average effective energy of E Mev is 3.7 < 101° C E Mev/sec/m!, 28 If this