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TheMNRHandbook
CaseStudies

This Section links to other chapters, with each chapter focusing on an

individualMNRmanufacturer.Eachchapterexploresthehistoryandpartnerships
of a manufacturing company and then describes in more detail its presentday
productline,groupingthesewhereappropriatesothatthereaderwillappreciate
the parametric relationships variation that may be observed in radiated data.
TherearechaptersdescribingthefollowingcorporateMNRmanufacturers:

ConsiliumNavigation

Furuno

Garmin

GEMElettronica

JapanRadioCompany,JRC

KelvinHughes

KodenElectronics(includingAnritsu,Lowrance,Nobeltec,Northstar,SITex
andSimrad)

Navico

Raymarine

RaytheonAnschutz

SAMElectronics(exSTNAtlas)

SperryDecca

CaseStudyObservations

Background

ThechapterscoveringFuruno,JRC,KodenElectronicsandRaymarineare
substantiallymoreextensivethanothers,becausetheyincludelongtermstudies
of systems held on the inventory of the Naval Research Laboratory for various
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overlapping periods between November 2001 and November 2004. Most of the
systems studied were Xband equipments suited to nonIMO vessels such as
fishing,utilityandrecreationalcraft,inupmastconfigurationswithaDCvoltage
supplyintherange1224voltsinsomeinstances,thisDCpowerwasprovided
by rectification of shore supplies, and in others via an external battery that was
keptcharged.

Forthestudy,observationsofradiatedsignaldatawerederivedaperiodically
from an IFMbased system, automatically characterized, identified by a qualified
operator, and catalogued in spreadsheets. In some instances, radiated signal
characteristicsweretoocomplextobefullycatalogued,specificallythoserelated
to complex pulse interval behavior in those instances, the operator logged as
many characteristics as circumstances would allow. Thus, any one observation
might comprise a restricted representation of reality over multiple observations,
however, the totality of a complex behavior might be discerned from the
numerousindividualobservations.

Theradarsinvolvedinthelongtermstudy[1]werenotusuallyamenable
to remote control, and physical access required considerable travel from the
observation facility in consequence, the radars generally operated in a given
mode for long periods. Also, since the radars overviewed a seaway spanning
several nautical miles, it was unusual for them to be operated on very short
rangescales for most of the time, they were left to operate on what the radar
manufacturer might term Medium or Long rangescales, ranging upwards from
around 3 nautical miles. Because of the natural human desire to see over the
horizon,operationinShortRangemodes,characterizedbyhighpulseratesand
pulse durations less than 150 nanoseconds, was quite uncommon. To
accommodate this natural tendency on the part of radar users, behavioral
snapshots comprising pulselevel data from the IFM system were also obtained
when possible, and their characterizations incorporated into the evaluation of
individualsystems.

Finally, it should be noted that, from time to time, individual systems

suffered from component failures or were temporarily adapted to satisfy the
requirements of other trials. For example, a new magnetron might be installed
temporarily to test other sensors or an antenna drivebelt might need to be
replaced because of wear. Although they might help account for some of the
abrupt irregularities noted, records of these maintenance transactions were not
availableduringthestudiesforthissectionofthehandbook.Cautionistherefore
advisedininterpretingshorttermbehaviors,anditshouldbenotedthat,withthe
exceptionofpulsetrainbehaviors,theanalysiswhichfollowsfocusesdeliberately
onbehavioraltrendsratherthanspecificevents.

Analysis
RadioFrequency

All of the radars studied exhibited small shortterm RF variabilities over a

spanofweeks,themeasuredRFmightvarybyperhaps23MHz,butmore
substantialvariationsinthatspanwerequiteuncommon.
An almostuniversal characteristic of the radars studied, however, was a
longterm behavior: with only one exception, all of the radars exhibited a
longterm downward trend in RF, with rates ranging between 0.5 and 3.0
MHzpermonth.

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clickforLargepicture

Inatypicalscenario,theRFmeasuredatthebeginningofthestudywould
be around 9410 MHz over the next 2430 months, it would reduce to
around9375MHz,withthesharpestreductionsoccurringearlyinthespan
(oneofthediagramsproducedforthestudyofaSITexT295radarsystem,
providesagoodillustrationofthistrend).|
AftertheRFlowpointhadbeenreached,itwasquiteusualtoseeagradual
reversalofthebehaviorhowever,noneofthepreserveddatasetsshowed
acompletereversal,andanecdotalevidencewasprovidedthatitwasquite
common for magnetron failure to occur within a short span after the
minimumpointhadbeenreached.
Giventheobservations,thespanoftimeoverwhichthebehaviorprojected,
and anecdote, it appears that this trend is a common consequence of
magnetronageing.
Beyond the longterm trend in RF behavior, there were several instances

where an apparentlyseasonal influence was noted (again, the diagram in
theSITexT295providespictorialevidence).Thisinfluencetooktheformof
a somewhat sinusoidal variation in the downward trend of RF, with
wintertimemeasurementsgenerallysomewhathigherthaninthepreceding
summer,andoftensubstantiallyhigherthaninthefollowingsummer.
Theunderlyingcausesofthisapparentbehaviorwerenotreadilydiscernible
from the preserved data. However, in a subsequent coolweather test, the
chassistemperatureofonecaptivesystemwasdeliberatelyvariedbetween
32 and 90F, twice in a span of ~90 minutes. During this short test, the
radar repeated much of the patterned variability of RF noted over yearly
cycles,butinagreatlycompressedspanoftime.
The test, then, combined with the study measurements, suggests strong
couplingbetweenambienttemperatureandasinglesystem'sRF,whenthat
systemisanupmastconfiguration.Ifthecouplingisreal,itrevealsitselfas
reducedRFathighertemperatures,withdifferentialdependentvariationsof
upto12MHzovertherange3290Fthelongtermstudydatasuggests
amuchsmallervariation,typicallynomorethan5MHz.
ThisaspectofmagnetronbehaviorisalsodiscussedunderPulseDuration.
Broadly:
Observedpulsedurationsaveragedoverthestudyperiodweremuch
asadvertisedbyradarmanufacturers,andoftenindistinguishablefrom
claimedcharacteristics.

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Occasionally,itwasnotedthatthePDdeclinedprogressivelyoverthe
spanofstudy,andinsomeinstancesbecamemoreerraticintime(a
diagram resulting from the study of a Raymarine SL74 system,
providesarepresentativeillustration).

There were also occasionally hints of apparentlyseasonal variation
similar to that noted for RF, although on a greatly muted scale (see
analysis details for the Furuno 1943C radar system for a good
illustration):

Excluding the progressivelyerratic behaviors noted above, it

was rare for any one system to deviate by more than 100 nS
from its nominal value so small that ordinarily it would be
overlooked.|

Nonetheless,PDbehaviorwasexploredduringthecoolweather
testdescribedforRFbehavior,andasmallbutdistinctvariation
appearedtocorrelatewithdeliberatechangesintemperature.
More specifically, PD reduced from around 0.83 S when the
radar chassis was cold, to around 0.77 S when it had been
heatedto90Faverysubtlechange,notedduringanadhoc
testundernonlaboratoryconditions.

Scan

Aswithradiofrequency,itwasquitecommontonotetheapparentcoupling
betweenscanperiodicityandseason,withslowscansseemingtocorrelate
with colder weather. The most persuasive illustration of this was obtained
during review of data from a SITex T195 radar system, which varied its
scan cyclically between 2.4 and 2.8 seconds. In general, it appeared that
the radars studied employed periodicities that were most like their
documentedscaninsummer,andleastlikeinwinter.

However, the correlation between season and periodicity was much less
persuasiveduringthecoolweathertestdescribedabove.Itispossiblethat
theantennaslowsdownastemperaturedeclines,butthereversecannotbe
claimed:theslowestperiodicityobservedoccurredduringaheatingphase,
rather than a cooling phase, which is entirely at odds with the studydata.
The test was not conducted under rigorous control even so, a clear
correlation between scan periodicity and ambient temperature was not
demonstrated.

PulseRates

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Nopublishedmanufacturerdocumentationidentifiesinanydetailthenature
of the interpulse modulation characterization, for any of the systems
documentedinthishandbook.
KelvinHughesissomewhatunusual,inthatitsliteraturediscussesinbroad
generalizationsthecapacityofitsradarstovarypulserateswithinarange
andtosuperimpose"noisemodulation"onthepulsetrain.
Inallotherinstances,literaturewillatbestidentifyonlyanominalpulserate
insomeinstances,noteventhisisprovided,andtangentialmethodsmust
beusedtoovercomecorporatecoyness(e.g.bytrackingdowncertification
authorities'typeapprovaldocumentation).
Perhaps surprisingly, then, the measured pulse rates were usually very
closetotheratesgleanedfromliteraturesearchesindeed,eveninthevery
worstcasenoted,theaveragepulseratewaswithinapproximately10%of
thedeclaredPRF,differingby50HzfromadocumentedPRFof600Hz.
ThetablesprovidedintheCaseStudiesmaythusrepresentausefulguide
tosystemidentificationfrommeasuredbehaviors.

InterPulseModulations

None of the systems held by the NRL exhibited a simple, uncomplicated

pulsetrainineveryinstance,someformofintervalmodulationwasemployed.At
itssimplest,thiswasa2element2positionstaggeratthemostcomplex,a255
elementdiscretejitterorstaggerwasused.Ineveryinstance,thereappearedto
be distinctive features by which the radar origin might be identified, although it
maytakeaconsiderablevolumeofmeasurementsforsomeofthesetoappearto
theobserver.Thesedistinctivefeatureswereasfollows:

Furuno:

Furuno radars employed either of two 16element 16position

staggers,describedin detail in the Furuno case studies.. The choice
ofstaggerbehaviormaybegenerational,witholderradarstendingto
use one form, and newer (or updated) systems using some variation
ofthesecond.
Irrespective of the stagger sequence, the Furuno radars studied are
readilyrecognizedassuch,bysimplesteps:

The PRI rangebase is the smallest difference between sorted

pulseintervalvalues
Theindividualpulseintervalsrepresentthe240ththrough255th
multipleofthePRIrangebase

DivisionofthePRIrangebasebyasmallervalue,0.10296S,
will produce an integer result if a 77.7 MHz clock is used, and
the presence of a 77.7 MHz clock indicates a more modern
design
Discrimination between the two stagger patterns is readily
achieved, both visually and by comparison of alternate pulse
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intervalvalues.

JRC:

RadarsmanufacturedbyJRC,includingsomeRaymarinemodels(the
Raymarine R21XX and possibly the parametricallyindistinguishable
R10XX, R11XX, R20XX, R40X, R41X and R41XX), used a slightly
unstable2element2positionstagger.
Although the stagger may be slightly unstable, there was a constant
relationshipbetweentheshortandthelonginterval,that is a stagger
ratioof3:4.

Koden:

Kodenoriginatedradars(includingSITex)usingaslightlyunstable2
element 2position stagger, nonetheless maintained a very constant
relationship between short and long elements this stagger ratio is
15:17.

Some Kodenbased radars (e.g. from Simrad) appeared to use a

pulsetrain modulation derived from an Anritsu design. This
modulationcomprisesaprobablylinearfeedbackshiftregisterderived
255element255positionstaggersequence.

Raymarine:

The SL72 and SL74 systems both used a complex 75element

stagger,withanunvaryingPRIrangebaseof0.407S.ThetotalPRI
spread, in all PRI ranges, was approximately 32 S, sufficient to
encompass 80 uniformly spaced elements, but five of the potential
elements were never used. Unusually among the characterized
radars, these systems used pulse rates that manufacturer
documentation ascribes to an entirely different product line, rather
thantheratesascribedtothePathfinderseriestowhichtheybelong.

The RD218 and RD424 systems also used a complex 75element
staggerwithatotalPRIspreadofapproximately32Sand,likethe
PRI distributions of the SL72 and SL74, there were five potential
elements that were never used the same five elements, in every
observedmodeofallfourradars.
TheRD218andRD424,althoughsomewhatsimilartotheSL72and
SL74,exhibitedaverydistinctivefeature:thePRIrangebasewasan
orderofmagnitudesmaller,atapproximately0.047059S,andPRIs
werespacednonuniformlyatintervalsofeitherthe9th(usually)or8th
multipleofthePRIrangebase.AlsounliketheSL72andSL74,their
behaviors precisely matched manufacturer specifications, although
theydidnotexhibitalldocumentedcharacteristics.

SperryMarine:

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The Bridgemaster E systems observed in the study employed a

complex 66element discrete jitter or stagger, with a mode
independent PRI rangebase of 0.610250 S. It is postulated that
individual systems may have manufacturerassigned sets of PRI
values for the purpose of disambiguation or interferencereduction
betweenadjacentBridgemasterradars.

[1] A much shorter study, in 2009, examined the pulse modulation characteristics of newly
inventoried Raymarine RD218 and RD424 systems. The Raymarine section has been updated
because of these later studies, which uncovered a highly complex but ultimately repetitive and
predictable 75element PRI stagger pattern that had defied previous efforts to penetrate and had
beencategorizedasapseudorandomdiscretejitter.Thisbehaviorisdescribedinmoredetailinour
subscriberaccessible lockbox, here. A review of the earlier investigations suggests that this
behaviormaybecommontoseveralRaymarinedesigns.

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