Abstract: An apparatus for the suppression of terrain generated clutter in a pulsed weather radar system. Weather induced returns typically having scintillation frequencies greater than 50 Hz may be isolated from terrain backscattered signals utilizing a digital filter technique having a sampling rate equal to the pulsed radar PRF.

Abstract: An echo ranging weather radar system in which the bandwidth B of the radar receiver is made roughly equal to the bandwidth of the frequency spectrum of at least some expected weather echoes. In one embodiment, B T.sub.R is made equal to .alpha. during a time interval corresponding to a range increment at maximum range and during an earlier period corresponding to lower ranges, is varied inversely with range, where T.sub.R is the duration of an echo pulse which would be produced by a target of reference size, and .alpha. is a constant such as 1.2. In another embodiment, B is varied according to the duration T of actually received echo signals so as to set BT.congruent..alpha. during each echo reception interval, for different values of T. The gain of the receiver also may be varied with time.

Abstract: A low cost airborne weather radar system suitable for mounting in the wing of a single engine aircraft. The radar antenna is a truncated parabolic dish. The receiver/transmitter, relative to parameters used in a conventional receiver/transmitter operates at relatively small peak transmitter power with a relatively long transmitter pulsewidth which, in turn, is matched to the receiver bandwidth. The relatively small peak power allows for acceptable range performance due to the relatively larger pulse width. Further, the receiver/transmitter assembly is significantly reduced in size so as to facilitate location in an aircraft wing and be thereby directly connected to the antenna to eliminate range reducing intercabling losses.