Excerpt from congressional hearing on RF weapons: Mr. David Schriner is the Principal Engineer directed energy studies with Electronic Warfare Associates and a recently retired engineer with the naval weapons testing facility at China Lake. He has numerous patents, has received superior service awards, and given technical presentations over 42 years of civil and military service. He will discuss the difficulty in building a RF weapon and the terrorist threat. [Excerpt] In support of the information presented in this testimony and taking advantage of the winter's need to work indoors, a unit that uses oil spark-gaps was designed, built, and tested. The materials for it were mail-ordered at a cost of about $500 and about one week was needed to fabricate the mechanical hardware. It use two ignition coils and a battery for power, an automobile fuel pump and filter for the oil circulation, and commonly available transformer oil. An additional week was required to work out all of the electrical wiring, the oil lines, and the general finishing details. This unit was ready for testing in two weeks after starting the effort. The signal radiated from the unit was measured and found to be a very significant power level that can be compared against available vulnerability and susceptibility levels of military equipment. When the weather permits, this unit will be tested against a set of infrastructure targets at an official test range.
From the measurements and known signal levels, this unit is expected to be consistently deadly to many types of infrastructure items at ranges suitable for terrorist usage.
This quickly-developed low-cost system could easily be placed in a small van and used in a parking lot or directed at buildings that the van was driven past. It is highly likely that this type of device would be a very effective terrorist system and the findings of its design could be factored into another either a larger, higher powered device, or a more advanced design each with significantly greater effectiveness. The net result of all of this design, experimentation, fabrication and measurement proves that such a weapon system could be made by anyone with an engineering degree or even a bright technician with good hardware experience. The technical information required can be found in open sources, if not just from good common engineering sense. The materials needed are nothing special and if the effort is made, advanced concepts can be made using everyday hardware such as automotive ignition systems. The testing to date has been very limited but the results of this testing have provided considerable insight to just what is vulnerable in infrastructure systems. This insight and work leads to a firm opinion that a terrorist would have little trouble developing such technology and that he would have a high probability of success in the use as an RF weapon against our infrastructure elements found in any city or near facilities around the country. This work has been done within the proper security guidelines since: 1.The models made in my home laboratory/workshop used off-the-shelf materials and open-source references. 2.The laboratory tests of this hardware were made in a controlled environment with the proper security in place. 3.The results of these tests, the data capabilities, and the target set identities are kept in a facility cleared for classified storage. 4.The development of any of this hardware is reported on a regular basis to those with whom I relate at a classified level to assure that they are informed of the work and are able to apply this to their interests and efforts if necessary. Any of this hardware can be used by them for any determination of utility to military interests. Work in this area will be continued and an aggressive test and evaluation of these "back yard" techniques and methods will be accomplished. This process will be done in cooperation, and if requested, under the direction of agencies with an interest in this non-military weapon related process. The author of this report will, if requested, provide to the Committee further details at a classified level in the proper security environment. ----- Full hearing testimony: http://jya.com/rfw-jec.htm