4.

RADIO DIRECTION AND RANGES

Radio direction finder :

 Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), is the measurement of the

direction from which a received signal was transmitted.
 This can refer to radio or other forms of wireless communication, including radar signals
detection and monitoring (ELINT/ESM).
 By combining the direction information from two or more suitably spaced receivers (or a
single mobile receiver), the source of a transmission may be located via triangulation.
 Radio direction finding is used in the navigation of ships and aircraft, to locate emergency
transmitters for search and rescue, for tracking wildlife, and to locate illegal or interfering
transmitters.
 RDF was important in combating German threats during both the World War II Battle of
Britain and the long running Battle of the Atlantic. In the former, the Air Ministry also used
RDF to locate its own fighter groups and vector them to detected German raids.

 RDF systems can be used with any radio source, although the size of the receiver antennas
are a function of the wavelength of the signal; very long wavelengths (low frequencies)
require very large antennas, and are generally used only on ground-based systems.
 These wavelengths are nevertheless very useful for marine navigation as they can travel
very long distances and "over the horizon", which is valuable for ships when the line-of-sight
may be only a few tens of kilometres.
 For aircraft, where the horizon at altitude may extend to hundreds of kilometres, higher
frequencies can be used, allowing much smaller antennas.
 An automatic direction finder, often capable of being tuned to commercial AM
radio transmitters, is a feature of almost all modern aircraft.
 For the military, RDF systems are a key component of signals intelligence systems and
methodologies.
 The ability to locate the position of an enemy transmitter has been invaluable since World
War I, and it played a key role in World War II's Battle of the Atlantic.
 It is estimated that the UK's advanced "huff-duff" systems were directly or indirectly
responsible for 24% of all U-boats sunk during the war.[1]
  Modern systems often use phased array antennas to allow rapid beam forming for highly
accurate results. These are generally integrated into a wider electronic warfare suite.
 Several distinct generations of RDF systems have been used over time, following new
developments in electronics.
 Early systems used mechanically rotated antennas that compared signal strengths from
different directions, and several electronic versions of the same concept followed.
 Modern systems use the comparison of phase or doppler techniques which are generally
simpler to automate.
  Modern pseudo-Doppler direction finder systems consist of a number of small antennas fixed
to a circular card, with all of the processing performed by software.
 Early British radar sets were also referred to as RDF, which was a deception tactic.
 However, the terminology was not inaccurate; the Chain Home systems used separate
omnidirectional broadcasters and large RDF receivers to determine the location of the
targets.[
Radio Ranges:
 Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves.[1][2][3] Radio
waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and
300 gigahertz (GHz).
 They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to
an antenna which radiates the waves, and received by a radio receiver connected to
another antenna.
 Radio is very widely used in modern technology, in radio communication, radar, radio
navigation, remote control, remote sensing and other applications.

ITU frequency bands:

Band Band
Abbreviation Frequency Wavelength Abbreviation Frequency Wavelength
name name

Extremely
100,000– High
low ELF 3 – 30 Hz HF 3 – 30 MHz 100–10 m
10,000 km frequency
frequency

Super low 30 – 10,000– Very high 30 –

SLF VHF 10–1 m
frequency 300 Hz 1,000 km frequency 300 MHz

Ultra low 300 – 1,000–100 k Ultra high 300 –

ULF UHF 100–10 cm
frequency 3000 Hz m frequency 3000 MHz

Super
Very low
VLF 3 – 30 kHz 100–10 km high SHF 3 – 30 GHz 10–1 cm
frequency
frequency
 Extremely
Low 30 – 30 –
LF 10–1 km high EHF 10–1 mm
frequency 300 kHz 300 GHz
frequency

Tremendo
Medium 300 – 300 –
MF 1000–100 m usly high THF 1–0.1 mm
frequency 3000 kHz 3000 GHz
frequency

Radar:
 Radar is a radiolocation method used to locate and track aircraft, spacecraft, missiles,
ships, vehicles, and also to map weather patterns and terrain. A radar set consists of a
transmitter and receiver.
 The transmitter emits a narrow beam of radio waves which is swept around the
surrounding space.
 When the beam strikes a target object, radio waves are reflected back to the receiver.
 The direction of the beam reveals the object's location.
 Since radio waves travel at a constant speed close to the speed of light, by measuring
the brief time delay between the outgoing pulse and the received "echo", the range to
the target can be calculated.
 The targets are often displayed graphically on a map display called a radar screen.
  Doppler radar can measure a moving object's velocity, by measuring the change in
frequency of the return radio waves due to the Doppler effect.
 Radar sets mainly use high frequencies in the microwave bands, because these
frequencies create strong reflections from objects the size of vehicles and can be
focused into narrow beams with compact antennas.
 Parabolic (dish) antennas are widely used. In most radars the transmitting antenna also
serves as the receiving antenna; this is called a monostatic radar.
 A radar which uses separate transmitting and receiving antennas is called a bistatic
radar.

 Airport surveillance radar – In aviation, radar is the main tool of air traffic control.
 A rotating dish antenna sweeps a vertical fan-shaped beam of microwaves around the
airspace and the radar set shows the location of aircraft as "blips" of light on a display called
a radar screen.
 Airport radar operates at 2.7 – 2.9 GHz in the microwave S band.
 In large airports the radar image is displayed on multiple screens in an operations room
called the TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control), where air traffic controllers direct
the aircraft by radio to maintain safe aircraft separation.
o Secondary surveillance radar – Aircraft carry radar transponders, transceivers
which when triggered by the incoming radar signal transmit a return microwave signal.
This causes the aircraft to show up more strongly on the radar screen. The radar which
triggers the transponder and receives the return beam, usually mounted on top of the
primary radar dish, is called the secondary surveillance radar. Since radar cannot
measure an aircraft's altitude with any accuracy, the transponder also transmits back
the aircraft's altitude measured by its altimeter, and an ID number identifying the aircraft,
which is displayed on the radar screen.
 Electronic countermeasures (ECM) – Military defensive electronic systems designed to
degrade enemy radar effectiveness, or deceive it with false information, to prevent enemies
from locating local forces. It often consists of powerful microwave transmitters that can
mimic enemy radar signals to create false target indications on the enemy radar screens.
 Radar altimeter – a specialized radar on an aircraft that measures the altitude of the
aircraft above terrain by bouncing a radio beam off the ground surface and measuring the
time for the echo to return.

Rotating marine radar antenna on ship.

 Marine radar – an X band radar on ships used to detect nearby ships and obstructions
like bridges. A rotating antenna sweeps a vertical fan-shaped beam of microwaves around
the water surface surrounding the craft out to the horizon.
 Weather radar – A Doppler radar which maps weather systems and measures wind
speeds by reflection of microwaves from raindrops.
 Phased-array radar – a radar set that uses a phased array, a computer-controlled
antenna that can steer the radar beam quickly to point in different directions without moving
the antenna. Phased-array radars were developed by the military to track fast-moving
missiles and aircraft. They are widely used in military equipment and are now spreading to
civilian applications.
 Synthetic aperture radar(SAR) – a specialized airborne radar set that produces a high-
resolution map of ground terrain. The radar is mounted on an aircraft or spacecraft and the
radar antenna radiates a beam of radio waves sideways at right angles to the direction of
motion, toward the ground. In processing the return radar signal, the motion of the vehicle is
used to simulate a large antenna, giving the radar a higher resolution.
 Ground-penetrating radar – a specialized radar instrument which is rolled along the
ground surface in a cart and transmits a beam of radio waves into the ground, producing an
image of subsurface objects. Frequencies from 100 MHz to a few GHz are used. Since
radio waves cannot penetrate very far into earth, the depth of GPR is limited to about 50
feet.
 Collision avoidance system – a short range radar or LIDAR system on an automobile or
vehicle that detects if the vehicle is about to collide with an object and applies the brakes to
prevent the collision.
 Radar fuze – a detonator for an aerial bomb which uses a radar altimeter to measure the
height of the bomb above the ground as it falls and detonates it at a certain altitude.
 Radar speed gun – A handheld Doppler radar used by traffic police to measure the
speed of vehicles to determine if they are obeying the local speed limit. When the officer
points the gun at a vehicle and presses a trigger, its speed appears on a numeric display.
Speed guns use the X band or Ku band.
Loop antenna:
 A loop antenna is a radio antenna consisting of a loop or coil of wire, tubing, or
other electrical conductor usually fed by a balanced source or feeding a balanced load.
Within this physical description there are two distinct antenna types:
 The large self-resonant loop antenna has a circumference close to one wavelength of the
operating frequency and so is resonant at that frequency.
 These antennas are used for both transmission and reception. Resonant loop antennas have
a two-lobe radiation pattern; they are most sensitive to radio waves in two broad lobes in
opposite directions, 180° apart.
 Small loop antennas have a small circumference compared to the operating wavelength.
 They may be used for transmission and reception, although antennas that are very small
compared to the wavelength are very inefficient radiators, and so are only used for reception.
 An example is the ferrite (loopstick) antenna used in most AM broadcast radios. The
radiation pattern of a small loop antenna has two sharp nulls in opposite directions. Due to
this directional pattern, small loops are used for radio direction finding (RDF), to locate the
position of a transmitter.
Small Loop Antenna:
 Small loops (or magnetic loops) are “small” in comparison to their operating wavelength,
typically between 5% and 30% of a wavelength in circumference.
 As with all antennas, antennas used much below resonance have a much smaller radiation
resistance, increasing the relative importance of ohmic losses, resulting in a much
poorer antenna efficiency.
 However, small loops may be resorted to at lower frequencies (wavelengths of tens to
hundreds of meters) where resonant loops and half-wave dipole antennas become
impractical.



  The full wave loop (left) has maximum signal broadside to the wires with nulls off the
sides, the small loop (right) has maximum signal in the plane of its wires
with nulls broadside to the wires.
 Contrary to resonant loop antennas, the antenna pattern of small loops peaks in the
plane of the loop rather than broadside to it.
 Small loops have advantages as receiving antennas at frequencies below
10 MHz. Although a small loop's losses can be high, the receiving signal-to-noise ratio
may not suffer at these lower frequencies, where received noise is dominated
by atmospheric noise and static rather than receiver noise.
 The ability to rotate a smaller antenna may help to maximize the signal and reject
interference.
 Small transmitting loops:
1. Size, shape, efficiency, and pattern
2. Matching to the transmitter
3. Use for land-mobile radio
4. Power limits
 Small receiving loops:
1. Magnetic vs. electrical antennas
2. Radiation pattern and polarization
3. Receiver input tuning
4. Insensitivity to locally generated interference

Direction finding with small loops:

Loop antenna, receiver, and accessories used in amateur radio direction finding at 80 meter wavelength
(3.5 MHz).
  Since the directional response of small loop antennas includes a sharp null in the direction
normal to the plane of the loop, they are used in radio direction finding at longer
wavelengths.
 The procedure is to rotate the loop antenna to find the direction where the signal vanishes –
the “null” direction.
 Since the null occurs at two opposite directions along the axis of the loop, other means must
be employed to determine which side of the antenna the “nulled” signal is on.
 One method is to rely on a second loop antenna located at a second location, or to move the
receiver to that other location, thus relying on triangulation.
 Instead of triangulation, a second dipole or vertical antenna can be electrically combined with
a loop or a loop stick antenna Called a sense antenna, connecting and matching the second
antenna changes the combined radiation pattern to a cardioids, with a null in only one (less
precise) direction.
 The general direction of the transmitter can be determined using the sense antenna, and
then disconnecting the sense antenna returns the sharp nulls in the loop antenna pattern,
allowing a precise bearing to be determined.

Loop-like antennas:
Some antennas look very much like loops, but are either not continuous loops, or are designed to
couple with the inductive near-field – over distances of a meter or two – rather than to transmit or
receive long-distance electromagnetic waves in the radiative far-field.

Halo antennas
Although it has a superficially similar appearance, the so-called halo antenna is not technically a
loop since it possesses a break in the conductor opposite the feed point; that totally changes the
current pattern since the voltages across the break are opposite and large. It is better analyzed as a
dipole (which also has a large voltage and zero current at the ends) which has been bent into a
circle.

RFID coils
Strictly speaking, RFID tags and readers interact by induction rather than transmission waves, and
so are not antennas. The use of coupling coils for inductive (magnetic) transmission systems
including LF and HF (rather than UHF) is outside the scope of this article.
These systems do operate at radio frequencies, and do involve the use of small loops which are
called "antennas" in the trade. Although these small loops are sometimes indistinguishable from the
small loop antennas discussed here, such systems are not designed to transmit or receive signal
waves (electromagnetic waves), and can only operate over short distances. They are near
field systems involving alternating magnetic fields, and may be analyzed as poorly
coupled transformer windings; their performance criteria are dissimilar to radio antennas.