Some radio-frequency effects of the July 9, 1962, nuclear detonation

The purpose of this letter is to report radio-frequency observations of the Starfish nuclear detonation, which occurred on July 9, 1962. The observations were made at the Maipu Radio-astronomical Observatory of the University of Chile, latitude 33°30″S, longitude 70°52″W. At the time of the explosion, radio observations of the planets Jupiter and Saturn were being made at the Chilean observatory and at the University of Florida Radio Observatory. While local thunderstorm activity completely blanketed the records at the Florida station, reception at the Chilean observatory was reasonably good, and radio-frequency effects of the explosion were apparent at this station (Figure 1). The antennas being employed in Chile were dipole arrays, the characteristics of which are shown in Table 1.