RARR Antennas and Tracking
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The GRARR VHF and S-band antennas were driven by identical hydraulically-powered X-Y mounts with digital angle encoders accurate to ±0.1°.
The VHF antenna was a 8.4m (28ft) square array of cavity-backed slots operating on about 150Mc. The array was later upgraded to backward-scatter dipoles. The antenna had a beamwidth of 16° and was often used as an acquisition aid for the narrower beamwidth S-band antenna.
The S-band antenna consisted of twin 4.2m (14ft) parabolic dishes operating on around 2500Mc with a beamwidth of 2.5°. One dish transmitted and the other received; the separation of transmit and receive functions decreased noise feedback on the receive dish. Both VHF and S-band antennas had 10Kw transmitters.
