Show radar magical beam that tha A bounces back on contact confab lightning calculator estimates distances upon deflection of electrons study of apparatus still in infancy by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator service union trust building washington D C in a previous article mr baukhage told some of the little krown facts in the he t history and development of radar and recorded many of its possible peacetime uses in this article he explains what makes radar tick and how it performed some of its marvelous feats in this war impact a publication of the office of the assistant chief of air staff intelligence branch for the first time lifting the veil which has covered descriptions of radar says succinctly ly A radar set is nothing more than a machine for sending electrons out into space in a steady stream in a desired direction these electrons travel with the speed of light in a straight line until their energy is dissipated or unless they bump into something that bump is important it if a stream of electrons is shot into the air like a searchlight and a plane flies across the stream the electrons which hit the plane bounce back they bounce right back to a screen in the radar scope and are revealed in the form of a blip of light just as an echo bounding back on your eardrum is reflected in the form of a sound the principle of the real echo is used in sonic location of obstacles ships use it to locate shoals for instance and recently it has been demonstrated that bats use the same principle in avoiding obstacles which they cant see since they are blind by uttering a tiny beep chepitch the pitch of which is probably too high for the human ear to catch their beep bounces back in time to warn them to duck but radars electronic blip is better than a sonic beep one reason is that an electron moves with the speed of light which is faster than sound echo caught on radar receiver perhaps at this point we ought to recall to your minds what an electron is A short definition of an electron is the most elementary charge of negative electricity electrons plus protons the positive charge are what atoms are made of and atoms are what molecules are made of and you and I 1 and the universe and all it contains are as we learned in high school nothing but various groups of molecules ordinarily electrons pursue the even if rapid tenor of their ways well within the bounds of their own atoms but radar has changed all that it has made it possible to project those electrons out into space and then if they hit something and bounce back to catch the echo on the scope of the radar set in the form of a blip or blob of light we cant go into detail as to how this operation takes place but bt we can tell you in a general way the scope of the radar set is round it is like a map north at the top south at the bottom east to the right and west to the left so that you will know where you are a little light appears on the screen just where your set is located on the map you are looking at by moving the instrument you can keep yourself in ift the middle it if you see another spot of light on the screen up where 12 would be on your watch dial you know there is a plane or other object north of you if it should be a plane and it were coming toward you which the would reveal sand and it finally appeared right on top of the light that showed your location know that there was going to be a collision radar can see a ship 30 miles away and see it in the dark through a wall of cloud or mist which no human sight could pene tate different substances give stronger or weaker echoes on your screen water little or none land more built up areas more than fields rocks more than softer surfaces in addition to locating an object in relation to the observer the location of the radar set the distance from the object can be calculated by the length of time it takes for the electrons to reach the object and bounce back the elevation angle of height from observer and the deflection how tar far to the right or left are calculated just as a surveyor makes these calculations by observation from two known points and you dont have to be an engineer to do it either it is done automatically by a lightning calculator I 1 have stood in awe before these calculating machines which can think more accurately and a thousand times faster than I 1 could figure and watched how they direct the aim of the turret waist and tail guns on a B 29 As I 1 said in last weeks article the enemy has radar too the germans were working on it with investigation vesti gation and experiment which paralleled ours and those of the british in the early days of the war the germans had receiving sets on high hills along the coast of france the electron beam like that of television moves in a straight line and since the surface of the earth is curved this curve gets in the way if the image and receiving set are too far apart therefore land sets are placed as high in the air as possible we knew that the germans had some kind of an electronic device and they knew we had one one of the e early commando raids chic the papers said was successful i destroying a german radio sta tion really destroyed the radar in st stal al lation poke out japs eyes one of the reasons why iwo jim and okinawa were so important be sides the fact that they make ex cellena naval and air bases is be cause the japs had their radar de lection stations on these islands anc were able to detect the presence 0 our bombers and intercept flight you will also recall that s r number of little adjacent island that hardly seemed of any imbor tance were seized by our troops in all probability it was lecausi they had radar installations could detect and give warning 0 planes leaving the larger island to fo japan As we put out her eyes one after another japan become more impotent there have beet many cases you may have noticed where the japs on land or on smal ships have been taken by surprise I 1 have no information on this sub eject but in some cases it may havi hav been due to the fact that thea the lacked radar equipment it is be lieveld that what radar knowledg japan has came from the germans of course there is one phase 0 radar detection which in the pas has sometimes prevented use a 0 data concerning the detection of i plane or ship that is the fact tha i until the object is very close it can not be identified it is merely i blip of light therefore it is irn im possible to tell friend and enemy ebern apart some sort of identification has been developed details of are still I 1 believe top secret an example of how this worked tc t the disadvantage of the british was in the engagement in which HM F hood was lost on may 21 1941 the hood was lying in the strait be tween iceland and greenland aher suddenly out of nowhere she was wai hit by a salvo from the 15 inch guns of the powerful bismarck the bismarck had accurately located the hood with radar equipment the first reported successful use ol 01 in such a naval operation ir the war it is said that the hood had likewise detected the presence of a ship at the spot where the bis marck was but knowing that a number of friendly warships were in the vicinity did not dare to take the chance of attacking first many improvements have been made in radar which are not as yet yel ready tor for the public eye and all say the study is only in its infancy scientific achievement seems limitless and the one virtue of war is that it spurs inventive genius to great strides of progress |