High Frequency Surface Radar Goes to Infinity & Beyond!

Gather round, kids! Ol' Uncle Brian is going to tell you about yet another new Radar technology being developed. Radar has tons of uses. Clocking the speed of baseballs, cars and even asteroids. But radar also has it's limits.

One of these is that, for the most part, you need to have a line of sight visual of your intended target. A police officer can't measure your speed if there's a building between you and him. The same goes for baseballs, tennis balls and asteroids.

The reason for this is that radar works by sending out a radio wave, which bounces off a surface back to its origin. How fast the radio wave comes back as well as the change in its frequency can tell you how far away an object is, how fast it's moving, and, if you're really clever, what it looks like. Very cool stuff.

I did write a post a little while back about a radar gun that can see through walls, and while that's neat, it is only for short distances. If you're a government agency hoping to monitor the ocean, that system won't help.

So what stops radar from working on the ocean? Ships? Flying sharks?

Nope. The limit on radar, when covering an area close to the ground at long distance, is actually the curve of the Earth. At present, radar can only image out about 55 kilometers on Earth. While that may seem like a long distance, when you consider the vastness of the ocean, it's a drop in the bucket.

Canada doesn't like that. They want to be able to see WAY more than they can right now.

Their solution? High-Frequency Surface Wave Radar. Using a series of radar towers, this new radar tech broadcasts signals that follow the curve of the Earth. The Canadian government hopes to be able to get accurate readings out to 280 kilometers. That's a pretty serious improvement.

High-Frequency Surface Wave Radar has been around a couple years, and while it was tested a few years ago, the Canadian government pulled the plug on the system because it was interfering with civilian communications.

Fortunately, a few kinks in this radar system have been ironed out, and they should now be able to use the system without messing up your iPhone's signal strength.

This system will be used to stop terrorists and smugglers from entering Canada, and it can also be used to stop illegal fishing and find ships that spill oil or crash.

This is an interesting evolution in radar technology. It's not a completely different path for the tech, but it's also pretty cool and new. We have some of the best brands in Radar Guns such as Bushnell, Stalker and Decatur, and I know they're always upping their game.

Bushnell, for instance, just showed off some cool new toys at SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Not Radar-specific tech, but some really neat new items. I've been reading all about it on GearExpert.com. They're covering the show from top to bottom. If you like new tech, you should check them out!

Labels: new technology