RADAR

RADAR equipment and accessories.

Chalco Paper Tape Reader

Jul 132014

I just bought this punched paper tape reader through eBay, just because it looks neat. It was made by Chalco Engineering Corporation, and the accompanying paperwork indicates that it was part of the AN/TPN-19 radar system. It appears to have been overhauled and then packed up for use as a spare. I didn’t find any technical details about it online, but to my amazement I found an original manual for this series of tape readers in another eBay listing! The manual doesn’t cover all of the details of this particular model, but it should be very helpful anyway. When I get around to it, I’ll scan the manual so it can be archived online somewhere.

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AN/APQ-171 Radar Antennas

Radio Room 5 Responses »

Jul 052012

For a long time, I’ve had a passing interest in radar antennas. Not so much the antennas themselves, but mostly their azimuth-elevation (az-el) drives. Every now and then, I’d search on eBay for any such az-el drives that looked both interesting and inexpensive, with or without antennas. I finally found one to buy about a month ago, and here’s a little bit about it.

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US Navy Microwave Protective Clothing

Radio Room Comments Off

May 252007

This conductive mesh suit was developed to protect people who need to work in strong RF fields emitted by Naval shipboard RADAR systems. It provides a minimum of 20dB of attenuation from 200 MHz to 10 GHz, in fields up to 200 mW/cm². A complete set also includes rubber boots and gloves, a hardhat, and cotton over-clothes which prevent arcing between electrical equipment and the conductive mesh suit.

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Radar Set AN/PPS-6

Quartermaster, Radio Room 7 Responses »

May 022006

Radar Set AN/PPS-6 is a lightweight non-coherent pulse Doppler combat surveillance radar operating in the X band between 9.0-9.5 GHz. When set up on its tripod, it allows the operator to detect moving objects at ranges of up to 1,500 meters (people) or 3000 meters (vehicles). The operator can measure the target range with a resolution of 50 meters. Transmitted RF power is generated by a magnetron tube, and the receiver local oscillator uses a klystron tube. It transmits pulses at a rate of about 2,000 pulses per second with a peak power of at least 100W and a width of 0.22-0.30 microseconds. An azimuth motor allows automatic scanning, and the motor may be disengaged for manual aiming. There is no display screen; the operator listens for the returned Doppler-shifted tone in the headphones, and reads out range on a mechanical counter after dialing in the range gate with a hand crank. The antenna is a 12 inch diameter truncated parabolic dish. The set operates either from an internal 12V silver-zinc rechargeable battery or an external 12VDC source.

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