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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Radars in Fighters, AWACS, etc.
Message-ID: <1991Mar22.044429.24118@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 22 Mar 91 04:44:29 GMT
References: <1991Mar12.232220.29870@cbnews.att.com> <1991Mar18.135333.19904@cbnews.att.com>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: stevew@wyse.wyse.com (Steve Wilson x2580 dept303)
>>... 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! )

You can get quite good radar information if you know exactly where the
emitter is and when it is sending out pulses.  This is called "bistatic
radar" and has been a research topic for quite some time.  It's harder
than conventional radar but there is nothing impossible about it.  I
don't believe it is actually in use, however; in the case mentioned, I
believe the F-14s are getting the story by datalink from radar aircraft.
-- 
"[Some people] positively *wish* to     | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
believe ill of the modern world."-R.Peto|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry