Operating Manual

a splash plate. The splash plate moves to place the antenna beam anywhere in
360 degrees of azimuth and 0 to 45 degrees of elevation. This configuration
allows for much quicker beam positioning as well as much higher reliability as
compared to conventional altitude/azimuth mounts. In addition, the efficiency of
this type of configuration is higher than conventional systems, leading to better
sensitivity of weather phenomena.
The antenna is designed for dual polarization operation which allows for particle
identification. The antenna is also designed for low sidelobes and very high front-
to-back ratios which reduce interference.
Transmitter:
The transmitter is a two staged device that is bias controlled during operation.
The output is 100 watts and is split evenly between two output channels
connected to the antenna. The duty cycle is less than 3%.
The transmitter is designed with high efficiency, state of the art components and
produces 100 watts of peak power. The average power depends on the pulse width
and pulse repetition frequency which is preset to around 0.4% or 0.4 Watts.
The design minimizes out of band spurious outputs and complies with all FCC
requirements. This system has been tested and certified by an FCC approved
laboratory.
Receiver:
There are two receivers that sample the outputs of two circulators. The receiver
outputs are fed to 16-bit ADCs and then to computers for data transfer.
The receiver is a single conversion, high gain, low noise design which optimizes
the detection of return signals and sends them to the data acquisition system
which performs several math functions before outputting the data for display.
The receiver is actually two identical receivers, one for each channel that is
eventually characterized as vertical and horizontal polarizations. These channels
are matched and calibrated before they send their data to the data acquisition
system.
Data Acquisition: