How does RADAR work? | James May Q&A | Head Squeeze 

One does not call Sir. James May “this dude”

@@zakwright9612 captain slow 😉

Yes, the script writer was good

No he didn’t.

When I think “Dude” I think shirtless skateboarder and/or surfer with long blonde hair giving a “Shaka” sign

…i don’t think he is

​@Edgar Draves I think there's a compilation floating around the Internet of him screaming at Hammond. Yeah, he is the loud one.

Yes, me too.

What more, jump from the cliff! :-)

darkodin7 I just put the last of 1500 fiber optic windows in my 2 foot star destroyer as I started to read your post. That's funny. Thumbs up!!!

10,000 years of fresh air. We must get through that air shield!

Bending I understood but how does it manipulates?

Chain of energy

Because they're being pulled together like an elastic band

Im not James May but quick answer: The dome is usually the structure the real radar is under. The saucer is just like a parabolic antenna, an old fashioned way to maximise antenna gain. The girders are just the structure of the antenna. The most weight efficient way to build sturdy stuff. To counter corrosion or stiffen the structure, a weather proof outer layer may be added.

Coincidental, not ironic (:

***** Lol my bad!

drew2pac Ironic meaning, being mostly made of iron.

***** ...... True! God, it's like we all have subscribed to the same channels...... Which is kind of ironic! The ironic bit was a joke btw :)

drew2pac Since we all seem to be subscribed to the same channels, got any subscription suggestions? lol

+Jim Fortune No. You just lit up your location like a christmas tree then.

matchbox2022 It's a bad idea in many situations, but that doesn't change the definition. Jamming is different from spoofing.

+FalcoGer I'm not 100% sure about your question and am only an enthusiast, but my brother and I have had lots of talks about radar and that's his degree not mine....., but I believe the time difference wouldn't matter much in the case of two separate systems comparing their answers after the fact of detection. It would be fast, but yes, not instantaneous due to the limitations of the speed of voltage, which is much slower than the speed of light. (not to be confused with the speed of electricity). The wave is directional, so the receiver isn't picking up a beam transmitted from the source...whatever the pulse time would be. An analogy would be a laser pointer held by a friend and a mirror in the distance, with your eye beside the laser. You can't see the laser, only the reflection / mirror...and your friend knows the exact time he turned the laser on, and the exact time you saw it immediately.... YOU know. So then you two compare notes and get a difference in very small time scales. You can do the same thing yourself yelling at a cliff or brick wall with a stopwatch. The orthogonal thing, I think it has to do with the surface area that the radar can see. As you stated, teh distance does diminish the signal, and if not a lot of that signal is hitting the object, then less is returned and can't be seen. The surface area of the aircraft has a lot to do with that, which is generally less when seen from "the side". In stealth craft especially, angles make a HUGE difference, mostly likewise angles, so that radar reflects in an odd fashion. The amount an air-frame absorbs as radar matters too, reducing the signal returning, since they are similar to microwaves, you "can" turn these signals into heat and absorb them, the f117 made use of both of these facts.......which is why it looked like the black aircraft from hell. That and when you are looking at something toward the ground, you can get interference due to direct returns, and potentially the wave being attenuated by the ground depending on the frequency, making any image you get back a real mess. Ocean waves would work the same way, if not worse. Though, I think, using long wave radar and that surface attenuation, you can actually get radar to follow the curve of the earth too. All depends on the frequency really...and line of sight. The best case would be a way of attenuating the radar wave around an object to have no radar at all and no radar "shadow". But I think that's above my pay grade. :P

Stealth is pretty straight forward. It's a mix of thing for high end fighter jets, but it all boils down to lowering the amount of radio waves that bounce off of the plane and return back to the sender of the signal. Think of it like trying to find someone in a black room with a flash light. The thing you're trying to find can be better hidden if you paint it in something that doesn't reflect the light, black in the case of light and a special radio wave absorbing layer in the case of Radar. It's dark so it's hard to spot it. This however is just part of what makes modern jets stealthy, they are also shaped in a way that make it unlikely that the signals that do bounce off don't bounce back to the sender, hence the jagged edges of a stealth jet. But it doesn't stop there. There's also measures taken to make sure that the jet exhaust is covered up so that no one could see the infra red heat signature. You know... like in that Star Trek movie where Kirk sends a missile which follows the Klingon's exhaust trail. The tough thing is that a jet can't use it's radar while staying quiet, because enemy jets can figure out where the source of the signal is and take you out.

I'm guessing they use superposition of waves to cancel out the incoming wave so that the outgoing wave literally disappears.

radar jammer throws egg cartons at your swear words

Wise Guy 508 I don't think jammers cancel out incoming waves, I'm not sure that's possible. Because radars are dependent on sending out a click and calculating the time until the response, all you need to do to screw a radar's range finding capabilities off is just spam fake responses. the radar receiver will start picking up more responses than it sent and won't be able to differentiate between a real rebound and the fake ones throwing off it's ability to accurately gauge range.

It pumps out tons of noise and points it at the radar. Using the cliff analogy, it would be like a second person cranking up a radio station set on static next to your ear so that you can't hear the echo clearly. There are more intelligent jammers, but this is the basic idea.

TheGoodChap Well, what do you expect would have happened when the radar gets fired at a blank piece of sky? Does it fall apart right there and then? Because I'm not saying your theory is wrong, I'm just saying that there are a lot of cloudless days and our atmosphere alone doesn't reflect radar, so it probably doesn't rely on a click HAVING to come back.

TheUKNutter interesting question, I'm not sure where we'd start with that one! If you've got any other burning questions join our G+ Community and tell us what you want to know plus.google.com/b/109745634756856970234/communities/115682880183087388642?cfem=1

***** I'll have a look when I have time! It's New Year's Eve, so... :D

@@TheUKNutter its been 8 years but did u get to find the answer to your question yet>??

@@surajprakash3181 Haha nope. Even now it still pisses me off.

@@TSOTL-0302 This account is 12 years old, but I have another one that’s 15 years old!

Probably, this video more than likely took longer to make than Minute Physics video

That's because television is dead and no one except grandmas in rest home and mental patients will be watching TV in 20 years.

ben garcia me too

RIP 😂😂😂😂

+FalcoGer Right yeah nothing to do with the radar-absorbent surface or the material used to build them lol

it has a certain range.

mark Draco and you can bounce signals off the atmosphere

Yes.

James answered the question 'What is an itch?' here and I think he talks about why it's so satisfying to scratch the itch! What is an itch? - James May's Q&A (Ep 5) - Head Squeeze