Electronics · Vol. II|Radar|1935 (British Chain Home era)

Radar

1935 (British Chain Home era)

Send a radio pulse; listen for the echo; time is distance. 1930s radar nets turned air attack into a tracked object. The same trick later landed airliners in fog, mapped storms, and clocked cars. Radar is seeing with wavelengths longer than light — a sense organs do not have.

Many; Watson-Watt among the British organisers · Britain, Germany, United States

How the mechanism is arranged

A pulse goes out; an echo comes back. Time of flight is range; direction of the dish is bearing.

How it works

A transmitter fires a short, powerful pulse.
A target reflects a tiny fraction back.
The delay and direction of the echo locate the target.

Why it mattered

Changed air war and then civil aviation.
Pushed microwave electronics and screens.
Gave weather a picture, not only a barometer.

What it unlocked

For further study

Science Museum, radar. Chain Home equipment.
Buderi, The Invention That Changed the World. Radar history.

Check

If an echo takes longer to return, is the target nearer or farther?