Radar observations of the moon at 10-cm wavelength

Abstract

This note describes some of the initial results derived from observations of radar echoes from the moon obtained at 10-cm wavelength at the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern. The radar, which has been described elsewhere [1], has a transmitter of 2 megawatts peak power with a pulse length of 5 microseconds and a pulse recurrence frequency of 260 per second. The receiver is of conventional design and has a bandwidth of 500 kc/s and a noise factor of 7.5. The aerial used is the 45-foot diameter radio telescope shown in Fig. 1. The telescope is controlled from a mechanical computer that converts the lunar coordinates into azimuth and elevation, which are then fed into a servo drive.