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From: stevew@wyse.wyse.com (Steve Wilson x2580 dept303)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Radars in Fighters, AWACS, etc.
Message-ID: <1991Mar18.135333.19904@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 18 Mar 91 13:53:33 GMT
References: <1991Mar12.232220.29870@cbnews.att.com>
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From: stevew@wyse.wyse.com (Steve Wilson x2580 dept303)

In article <1991Mar12.232220.29870@cbnews.att.com> cognos!geovision!pt@dciem (Paul Tomblin) writes:
>I remember reading some time ago that the F-14 could turn off it's radar,
>and the pilot and back seat guy would still see stuff on their radar 
>screens from the other radars around, such as the carrier, the AWACS, and
>other fighters with radars on.  At the time, I sort of assumed that there
>would have to be some sort of wireless data link, but now I'm wondering it
>that is correct, or if what the article really meant was that the  F14 radar
>just passively used the reflections from other radars.

Naaaaah!  The basic way a radar works is that you send out a pulse
and measure the time until you see the reflection. How can you do
this if you aren't the emitter(taking into account that we're talking
about the speed of light here and nano-seconds count! )  If such is
the case then it is done via data links.  It would be quite reasonable
for something that is already making alot of radio noise like AWACS
to also send out an encrypted data stream in the clear that the planes
received and re-displayed to the weapons officer.

Steve Wilson