
Radar Hardware 393
The transmitter and modulator form the RF pulse that is output to the antenna.
The transmitter on older (and simpler) systems is a magnetron or reflex klystron.
Some systems, however, might use an exciter-amplifier design. The purpose of the
modulator is to initiate and terminate the pulse by turning the transmitter on and off.
The receiver section is a
superheterodyne
design, which means that the RF sig-
nal received from the antenna is down-converted to a lower
intermediate:frequency
(IF) by heterodyning with the signal from a stable local oscillator (STALO). It is at
the IF that most of the signal amplification ...