RADAR CALIBRATION SOME SIMPLE APPROACHES BY DAVID ATLAS I - « In considering new and promising methods to calibrate radar, it is worth remembering some of the old and perhaps forgotten methods that were used over the last half century. uring the Radar Calibration Workshop at the shop. While formalizing these remarks in writing I 81st Annual Meeting of the American Meteo- thought it would be useful to elaborate upon them and Drological Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico, discuss some newer approaches. Thus this paper at- in January 2001,1 was surprised at the relatively little tempts to synthesize a range of techniques. A com- attention given to some of the simplest and proven mon thread that runs throughout is the calibration of methods. This stimulated some extemporaneous re- the overall system by use of standard or well-defined marks that I presented toward the end of the work- targets external to the radar. In part, I was troubled by the apparent lack of fa- miliarity of some of the younger generation with early AFFILIATION: ATLAS—NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, activities in this realm. I was also reacting to the re- Greenbelt, Maryland cent findings of the variability in the calibrations of CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: David Atlas, Distinguished Visiting Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 910, the Weather Surveillance Radars-1988 Doppler Greenbelt, MD 20771 (WSR-88Ds) around the nation that have been uncov- E-mail:
[email protected] In final form 22 May 2002 Above: In the early 1970s, Atlas used BBs to cali- ©2002 American Meteorological Society brate the vertically pointing frequency modulated- continuous wave (FM-CW) radar.