All technological advancements come with unintended side effects, some good
and some bad. It took years for engineers to realize that very high signal
strength at transmitters had the power to alter rock and soil.

Pictured here is dark brown rock that used to be bright yellow. The PBase transmitter,
beaming signals of prodigious strength, caused the yellow rock to mutate into the
color you see here. In addition, the bi-polar microwave radiation (channeled though
a resistive fratostatic inverter) melted grooves in the surface of the hill.

Fortunately, the rock's strength is not affected. However, the altered ground attracts
grasshoppers by the millions, who upon coming close to the mutated rock, get drunk by
some unknown process and fly into the antenna's anode, short-circuiting the signal---it
isn't pretty. PBase scientists are working with researchers at Yucca Mountain, Nevada
to determine how to mitigate this problem. In the meantime, this transmitter is
off-line and some others are operating at reduced strength.
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