On 24 Jan 2007 15:23:58 -0800, "Ron J" wrote:

So I was doing some reading and one article mentioned that a group
mounted an FM transmitter on a hot air balloon. I was also researching
on the methods used by the FCC to measured field strengths. So how does
one go about measuring field strength levels if a company somewhere,
somehow, sometime decides to mount their transmitter on a hot air
balloon to avoid building a tower?

Would the FCC procedures still be valid? I wondering how the field
strength tester would go mobile 30 meters from the radial or
measurement point if the transmitter is changing position constantly.

This is actually being done, not with FM but with television. The U.S.
Government (administered by the Voice of America) has, since the early
1990's, been beaming television signals to Cuba as the propaganda
station Television Marti. This is being done from an Aerostat Balloon
which is about 1/3 the size (in length and width) of a Goodyear-type
blimp and is of a blimp shape. It is tethered from one of the lower
Florida Keys about 20 miles East (and a bit North) of Key West. It is
at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. The signal can be seen in Cuba,
but it is usually jammed. These balloons have been used for years
before that as low-look radar pickets, notably for drug flight
interdiction and are quite visible in several places in the Southwest.

I was a technical advisor to this project back then. I advised on the
potential of jamming. This program was advocated by the first Bush
administration and had Congressional approval. With that sort of
horsepower, the various Federal agencys such as FCC (who had
remarkably little to say about it) USIA, NTIA, DOD, FAA, State Dept.
and a bunch of others all jumped into line. Several agencies had
strong objections to this effort but we were all sat down in the
White House Situation Room and told, "The President wants this and he
WILL get it." BTW, my role was only advisory, I had no policy
capacity whatsoever in this.

W3JT