Weather Radar Upgrade/Enhancement Capabilities

There are a number of situations where upgrading an existing radar may be more cost effective than replacing it, particularly if that radar has not reached the end of its economical life. Radtec has extensive experience in upgrading S, C and X-band weather radar systems from several manufacturers including EEC. In addition, Radtec’s collaboration with Sigmet provides a full range of signal processing and software upgrades.

There are several reasons that upgrading may be desirable:

• Optimize the investment in existing facilities
• Reduce operating costs:
  • Upgrading to a solid state modulator eliminates the periodic replacement of thyratron tubes, and improves the overall reliability of transmitter operation.
  • Upgrading to a common software across all radars simplifies and reduces the cost of training operators/technicians and supporting the radar system.
  • Adding a remote diagnostic capability enables the efficiency of centralized support services.
• Taking advantage of new technology. There have been significant advances in weather radar technology in recent years. Radtec upgrades can apply those advances to existing radars from most manufacturers.
  Doppler wind velocity measurement permits earlier detection of many severe weather systems. Doppler also permits the use of velocity based clutter filters to significantly improve clutter rejection, giving a clearer view of all radar weather images.
  • A solid state modulator using Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) technology improves the accuracy and precision of transmitted pulses.
    A digital receiver with a digital Coherent Oscillator (COHO) capability improves the accuracy of Doppler data, and hence improved operation of clutter filters.
    The combination of an IGBT modulator and a digital receiver gives a magnetron radar precision and accuracy approaching that of a fully coherent Klystron radar, at a lower cost.
• Add capabilities to meet new requirements, such hydrology rainfall data for water management, or wind shear detection for aviation safety.

The attached pages provide a summary of the most commonly installed capabilities Radtec can provide.

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