We changed our channel name! To clarify my statement about the first radar display, it appears that it was an oscilloscope and they would measure the distance between the transmitted signal pulse and the reflected pulse on the screen.
Keysight Labs I can confirm that this works for sonar, too. You can trigger on your sent signal and just look at the delay and signal distortion on the screen, basically did this during an internship in 9th grade in a water tank
@10:38 there is what is called SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radars) and are used to deduce the nature of large objects by cascading the small areas of the detected object one at a time and this need faster and more processing power to concatenate various detected sections of the object into one single object.
Very cool podcast, only thing that kinda messed with me was that Mike probably did not understood that the radio wave transmitted by radar is not always perpendicular to the object, and that it almost never bounces back at 90°, and also that radars have a visibility radius, rather than just a "point" view.
A British guy - Robert Watson Watt drove the early development of radar - he claimed to be the ‘father’ of radar. I was lucky enough to find his autobiography - signed by him - in a thrift store!
@4:50 there is what is called cooperative radar detection where multiple pulses maybe used, it is sort of analogy to array antenna but not an array - also there is adaptive and dynamic detection where the single signal (Multiple pulses sent as one package - varying the pulse width to compensate for various object conditions of the object being detected) to cover up a dynamic detection zone that can not be detected by a single pulse, otherwise. There are various methods of detection and ranging that can involved more than one detection signal and more than one pulse and frequency, depending on the technology and environment used at. Also depending on how far the object to detect the interrogating pulse (with certain pulse width) may not be able to accurately detect the object because of the loss of signal power (based on trigonometry rules) so for this reason the manipulation of the pulse width maybe necessary to get a more accurate signal reflection describing the object (location in space).
Professor Reginald Victor "R. V.' Jones was behind the British Home Chain. After the war Jones was Professor of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen University and worked on improving accuracy of instruments.. Since you mention space lasers, SAR is widely used in earth observation.
I am interested in the "translucent" properties at certain frequencies. As well as frequencies that are used in certain scenarios. For example, the Radome you where talking about has to have a certain Epsilon at given frequency... And the attenuation Weather or other atmospheric conditions have on the signal as discussed early in the podcast.
Christian Wehrle , the way the Radom is manufactured has influences on the propagated signal. For example, they often build the Radom in several pieces, the junction of these pieces will have another transmission path than when you are in a none junction area.
I was told by my parents that WWII Radar was developed and manufactured in the Chicago area----by various companies. Primary company was ZENITH. Located on the west side of the city. See this article: www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/419.html
Factory400 Very hard, you would need another satellite with a optocoupler which can pick up the lasers frequency. This is because it would be distorted if passed through the ionosphere so hard to calibrate.
NIST has standards is my guess. For frequency calibration, I read somewhere that the SRM2035 was used in space also as an internal transmission standard. Maybe a 99% reflectance standard also. I'm not sure if 1920a was or is used in space and same goes with SRM 2036 which has the 99% reflectance standard backing. Furthermore, there are land based standards that are well disclosed from the 50's and 60's era where one is noted as used in the 30's for aircraft: www.atlasobscura.com/articles/landscapes-made-for-satellite-eyes-calibration-targets-resolution-tests-and-giant-desert-compasses
