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Trionics, Inc. a Texas company has tested a 9 GHz band (3 cm) marine
radar to see how it works on land.  The following is a letter from
KenD'Ancicco of Trionics, Inc.

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Hello Matt!
Well, we have finished our tests here on the JRC Radar 2000 - it looks
good!
Here's a report card:

1) This unit has a 7" Monochrome CRT Display, 2 KW Peak ERP Xmit Power,
1.5' Diameter
Radome.
2) Although the ERP is 2 KW, the actual radiated power is about .5W -
this makes the unit quite safe to be in the proximity of during
operation (this is a big concern with High Power units)
3) On the day of our test, we had rain for the first time in 4 months!
We could effectively track
storms up to 24  miles distant. Of course, this performance was observed
while we were outside of the storms - once we entered into the rain
areas, performance was quite degraded (as we expected) due to the
absorbtion of the radar signals. Effective range inside the storms were
2 to 3 miles, depending on the intensity of the rainfall. This "In
Storm" performance could be improved upon by utilizing a higher power
transmitter; however we then have personal safety issues to contend
with.
4) As the Radome was mounted on top of my Ford F150, the antenna height
was quite low. Due to this, we encountered signal blockage & associated
"Dead Sectors" when we were within about 50 yards of any sizeable
structure or stand of   trees (also expected - although single trees
were not a problem). This could be improved by increasing the height at
which the antenna is mounted, but I don't see any practical way to do
this.
5) This particulat radar utilizes a "Phased Array" in lieu of the
typical "Slotted Waveguide Array" as found in most marine radars. This
is a blessing as it allows target returns from higher altitude targets
than are normally possible with the "Marine" type radars. Along with the
storms, we were also tracking commercial aircraft & helicopters! The
results we noted during the test lead us to believe that this will work
very well for storm chasing operations. We have sent this unit to Tom
McClure at the National Servere Weather Research Team in Reynoldsburg,
Ohio for their evaluation. As their topography is radically different
from ours (lots of hills & trees). We are anxious to hear their results,
and  anticipate a favorable response. I had discussed with you briefly
the topic of discounts. The list price on the JRC Radar 2000 is
$2,448.00. Trionics will subsidise a portion of this cost, and sell the
units at $ 1,950.00 to any  interested storm chasers.

That's about it Matt. By the way, we also handle GPS, Anemometer & other
data acquistion
systems that my be of interest.  Please let us know...

With Best Regards,
Ken D'Ancicco

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Trionics, Inc.
16910 Texas Avenue
Suite A8
Webster, TX 77598

Ph: 281-338-2688
Fx: 281-338-2686
E-Mail: triceo@trionics.com
Home Page: www.trionics.com
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