A while back I saw a thread about China celebrating Happy New Year by ttaking Taiwan back. It seemed pretty silly at the time. But..

China developing new air defense system- report

link http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/991128/bg.html

-- Don Hopeful (Don@Hopeful.com), November 28, 1999

Answers

LINK

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 28, 1999.

Transmitter-of-opportunity radar was looked at by the US maybe twenty years ago. Works great if you're in a transmitter-rich environment, say in a nation at peace with lots of commercial radio and TV stations transmitting in the area you want to monitor.

It would be useful for clandestine monitoring of your nation's domestic air traffic. Or to try and monitor air traffic in somebody else's country by using their radio and TV broadcasts as your radar transmitters. "Gee, look at all the TV antennas on that embassy. They look the ones on that trawler we saw."

But the big problem comes when there' a military situation. When a country is attacked, the first thing they usuall do is to order all radio and TV stations off the air. Ummmm...., so much for transmitter- of-opportunity radar during the peiod when the Chines would most want to use it.

But the big issue is that this would be a surveilence radar system, like air traffic control radars. A system like this won't work as a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) system. The radio wavelengths being discussed are too long to achieve the accuracy to guide a missile to a target. To make this a real air defense system there will have to be additional radars operating at "traditional" shorter wavelengths to provide accurate target position and range data.

WW: The aircraft tail code of the late George AFB, where manned lethal suppression of enemy air defenses was our business.

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), November 29, 1999.