Abstract: A method of operating a Doppler radar to track a target when main beam clutter is present is shown to comprise the steps of: (a) forming, from all signals exceeding a predetermined amplitude that are received by the pulse Doppler radar during a predetermined period, a range/Doppler matrix having NXM cells, where N is the number of range bins and M is the number of Doppler bins, with a digital one in any cell representative of a return signal with a given Doppler shift frequency from a reflector at a given range; (b) sequentially reading, in accordance with a predetermined program, the contents of the cells in the range/Doppler matrix to form digital numbers with digits indicative of the presence or absence of a reflector in adjacent cells; (c) comparing each digital number to a digital number representative of a target return signal; and (d) generating a frequency control signal when the comparison step indicates a target return signal to adjust a local oscillator in the pulse Doppler radar to effect tracking