TABLE OF CONTENTS T. A. Weil
Equipment Division
Raytheon Company
Figure 4.1 shows a block diagram of a typical pulsed radar system. Of these dozen blocks, the public news media generally show only the antenna and displays. The rest of the blocks are "unsung heroes," but they are equally important to the system and can be equally interesting from a design standpoint.
The transmitter is usually a large fraction of radar system cost, size, weight, and design effort, and it typically requires a major share of system prime power and maintenance. It generally ends up being a big box that sits in the corner of the radar equipment room, hums to itself, and has a big sign on it that says, "Danger, High Voltage"; so most people prefer to keep away from it. Its insides tend to look peculiar, more like a brewery than a TV set or a computer. This chapter will try to explain why transmitters have to be what they are and hopefully will make them appear a little less peculiar to the reader.
Transmitters are big, heavy, and costly and draw so much prime power because they are required to generate so much RF power output; and that requirement, in turn, comes from the radar system design tradeoffs.
The useful range of a search radar varies as the fourth root of the product of average...
