Historical Development of Radar
Time line
1842
Events
Christian Andreas Doppler first described Doppler RADAR using
"Doppler effect" phenomenon.
1864
James Clerk Maxwell developed equations governing the behaviour of
electromagnetic waves.
1886
Heinerich Hertz began his experiments with radio waves.
1888
Heinerich Hertz produced radio waves.
1897
J J Thompson studied cathode ray in a vacuum tube.
1904
Christian Hülsmeyer invented the 'telemobiloscope' which made use of
radio echoes in a detecting device designed to avoid collisions in marine
navigation.
1906
De Forest Lee invented the triode, the first active electronic device used
for signal amplification.
1914
World War I began.
1916
Marconi and Franklin studied reflection of short-wave signals.
1917
Robert Watson-Watt designed devices to locate thunderstorms.
1922
Marconi gave a speech to American Institutes of Electrical and Radio
Engineers on an angle-only radar for ship collision.
1924
Sir Edward Victor Appleton performed first successful radio range-finding
experiment using radio echos to determine the height of the ionosphere.
1925
John L. Baird invented the mechanical television (an earlier version of
television).
1925
Gregory Breit and Merle Antony Tuve achieved the first practical use of
radar by bouncing short radio pulses off the ionosphere using a cathode ray
tube.
26 February Robert Watson-Watt produced the first practical radar at Daventry.
1935
December
1935
Marconi company designed and manufactured the transmitting 'curtain'
antenna arrays for the first 5 'Chain Home' radar stations, covering the
Thames Estuary
1937
The Marconi company built 20 more CH stations for Britain.
1937
Russell and Sigurd Varian developed the oscillators high-power microwave
tubes, klystron.
1939
Henry Boot and John T. Randall invented the electron tube, called the
resonant-cavity magnetron.
1944
Marconi company designed, developed and manufactured 'Bagful' for
recording German radio frequencies and 'Carpet', a radar jamming system
used by RAF Bomber Command.
1945
Radar, with a special design vacuum tube- magnetron, helped the Allied
Forces defeated the German in World War II.