Moon radarIn 1946, the U.S. Army Project Diana team detected radar signals reflected off the moon's surface. A 180 cycle wave pulse with a 1/4 sec duration was beamed by the Army Signal Corps from the Evans Signal Laboratories, Belmar, N.J. The echo was received 2.4 sec. later, proving that radio waves could penetrate Earth's atmosphere. The experiment was supervised by Lt. Col. John H. De Witt, the broadcasting pioneer and amateur astronomer who first came up with the idea in 1940. His early amateur attempts were unsuccessful, but his chance came a few years later, after WW II, courtesy of the U.S. Army, at the Signal Corps Laboratories. During the war, he had developed radar for locating mortars and directing counterfire.«[Image: A wartime SCR-271 bedspring radar antenna, greatly modified for use in the experiment.] |
