During the Second World War, radar became one of the most important means of fighting wars. It is used to locate targets in the air and on the sea. The United States and Britain were among the first to develop radars. Many radar experts were created during the war. Some of these experts went on to become peacetime workers, while others joined up with the military.
Heinrich Hertz, a German scientist and physicist who developed the basic idea of radar in the late 1880s, came up with it. Hertz tested a device which could measure the speed and direction of light. His results proved that radio waves could be reflected from metallic surfaces. Maxwell states that radio waves can be also refracted by dielectric mediums.
In the 1930s, scientists from France, Germany and the Soviet Union started developing radar equipment. They started using radio echoes for aircraft detection. Their ability to pinpoint enemy aircraft was limited by the distances needed. Prior to the 1940s, radars operated within a narrow range. The first radars were large and weighed in the hundreds. Technology has allowed for smaller radars to be made that fit in a small dash-mounted device.
The US Navy started experimenting with radar in 1935. A ship passing between two radio transmitters could reflect radio waves. It was decided that radio waves could be used for detecting vehicle speed. A radio transmitter was placed by the US Naval Research Laboratory on the Potomac River. A patrol car then drove past and activated the signal. An officer would then park his vehicle and pull over to radio the speeder plate number. This allowed him to calculate the speed of the traffic moving toward the patrol car.
The Germans started bombing England during World War II. The Nazis realized that they had an advantage over the Allied bombers and knew it. Therefore, they started nighttime bombing missions. The Graf Spee eventually went down. These attacks led us to needing a more powerful radar.
In 1904, German engineer Christian Huelsmeyer filed a patent application for a radar effect. Telemobiloskop is the name of his invention. He was very interested in the possibility of using radio waves to detect targets. However, the German navy didn't show much interest in the invention. However, radar development was a major accomplishment for the Germans. German Navy also started using radar to defend against Allied bombers.
British scientists began to experiment with radar in the 1930s. Watson-Watt in 1935 developed the Doppler Theory, which became the basis for the first radar system. His system was designed to detect an enemy bomber in the air. He also established a series of radar stations along England's coasts, as well as the South and East coasts. This system of radar stations was first installed in September 1939.
US radars were also created for use on patrol cars. The first radar systems were hundreds of pounds in weight and could not accurately measure speed. A parked officer would then wait for a car pass to determine its speed. An officer would park his automobile and wait for a signal to determine the speed of the car.