Comments on “Antenna Beam Patterns and Dual-Wavelength Processing”

Abstract

It appears that most hail signals less than zero measured by the National Center for Atmospheric Research CP-2 radar during the National Hail Research Experiment were produced by differences between the two beam patterns. Positive hail signals, however, were not significantly affected by these differences. It is concluded that the CP-2 radar did detect and delineate regions of large hail. Assuming Rayleigh scattering, Rinehart and Tuttle proposed that dual-wavelength data be reprocessed, to account for possible differences between the two beams. In the presence of hail, however, there will be sidelobe effects even if the two beam patterns are well measured and well matched. The use of the estimated erroneous hail signals as proposed by Rinehart and Tuttle, therefore, leads to substantial and ambiguous errors, and the technique should not be used.