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Your latter concern is covered in the article: "But if it works as intended, the beam won’t ever contact anything but empty air. The system uses a net of lasers surrounding the beam to detect obstructions, like a bird or person, and it automatically shuts off transmission until the obstruction has moved on."

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OP explicitly said:

“Even a horn has diffraction sidebands, and unless they're all at least 8dB down in all situations that's bad. The laser trips won't cover this.”

I don’t really understand this. My guess is that they’re saying that besides the targeted microwave band, other high/low frequencies will be emitted (sidebands) and that these will diffract and be way outside of the directional beam that’s protected by the laser trip wire.

I would assume the inventors have at least some explanation for this, but a fluffy article won’t go into those details.

Maybe OP meant side-lobes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_lobe

As you rightly noted, an article wont go into those details :). you are rising a valid point which we have addressed. Happy to explain if you PM me

OP explicitly said, "The laser trips won't cover this."

That may or may not be true, but you're bringing up a point they already addressed.

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