LATPROP Radar Modifications for CLASI Experiment

Abstract

This paper describes the modifications made to a commercially available marine radar and how it was retrofitted to measure Refractivity-from-Clutter (RFC) from the sea surface in order to better understand atmospheric refractivity profiles. A Koden MDS63R marine radar was updated with a horizontal and vertically polarized 3 meter dish antenna that has a 48 dB gain, two options for PRF and pulse width, both long and short, the ability to discretely step in both azimuth and elevation to study 2-D spatial mapping and grazing angle respectively and the capability to preform Coherent-on-Receive (CoR) integration.