Overview

This is an attempt at building a proper pulse radar system using commonly available hardware store material, like copper plumbing pipe.  Really.  It will eventually be a full-blown Surface-to-Air Missle (SAM) system, but we have to start somewhere...

The pulse transmitter will be based around a design by John T. Zimmer (W2BVU) and Robert F. Guba (W1QMN) which was published by the ARRL in 1963(!)

It uses a 2C43 lighthouse triode operated as a re-entrant cavity oscillator with a resonant frequency of around 2.3 GHz for operation in the 13-cm ham band.

The 2C43 is high-voltage pulsed using an off-the-shelf marine radar modulator design and pulse transformer.

The 2C43 is designed for an average RF output power of around 2 watts, but by pulsing the anode voltage (approx. 2.7 kV @ 1 µs) it can reach a peak power of almost 2000 watts, depending on the particular 2C43's efficiency and output matching.

Using these old vacuum tubes is probably the easiest way to generate a large amount of peak RF power without being restricted to the frequency bands of commercially-available pulse magnetrons.  And it also avoids the hassle of having to parallel a bunch of solid-state modules to reach the same peak power.

The biggest drawback with this design is that the 2C43 hasn't been made for over 40 years, so you'll have to scrounge surplus tube websites, eBay, and hamfests for them.

Notes

1. Pulse Communications on 2.3 GHz  Pulse radio system using a 2C43 triode.  The Radio Amateur's VHF Manual - ARRL 1965.  (1.2M PDF)
2. Pulse: A Practical Technique for Amateur Microwave Work - Part 1  QST, February 1963
3. Pulse: A Practical Technique for Amateur Microwave Work - Part 2  QST, March 1963
4. Pulse: A Practical Technique for Amateur Microwave Work - Part 3  QST, April 1963
5. Pulse: A Practical Technique for Amateur Microwave Work - Part 4  QST, May 1963
6. S-Band Monopulse Radar Receiver Design and Implementation  by Mussie Ghebreegziabiher Hagos  (7.3M PDF)
7. Development of a Radar Pulse Modulator  by Eckard Friedrich Natte
8. Line-Type Radar Modulators  by Garrison Brown
9. Spacecraft Transformer and Inductor Design  JPL Publication 77-35
10. Naval Air Systems Command: Electromagnetic Compatibility Manual  NAVAIR 5335
11. 6 GHz Frequency Modulated Radar  
12. Homemade 6 GHz Radar, V3
13. Ed Thelen's Nike Missile Web Site  All the information & manuals you need to build your own Nike SAM missile!
14. Ed Thelen's Soviet SA-2 Missle System
15. NATO Electronic Warfare Equipment Catalogue

16. Radar Warning Story  (1.3M PDF)
17. F-0082 Radar Homing and Warning Equipment  Film made for U.S. Air Force by North American Aviation, 1967.  Installation in the F-4 Phantom (McDonnell).  (YouTube)
18. Combat Approved: Stealth Hunters  (YouTube)
• In this episode of Combat Approved, the viewers will see the newest one-of-a-kind weapon.  The combat portable air defense radar system Nebo M.  As our film crew has found out, the radar is capable of detecting and targeting the air defense strikes against not only the enemy airplanes and helicopters, but even against the ballistic missiles and stealth-aircraft.  To find out the limit of the combat radar's abilities, the journalists of Combat Approved will set up an unprecedentedly difficult test.  They'll try to locate and target a tiny drone with the help of the radar.  No other foreign radar of the same type is able to do that.  In addition, Combat Approved will visit the classified production site of these machines and will find out why a radio electronic circuit board weighing just 10 grams costs like 18 ounces of gold.  Moreover, for the first time on TV, we'll show you the unique Niobium-SV radar.  It's a portable and small complex which is able to detect drones "on the go," without additional settings.
19. Basic Tactical SIGINT: Tracking Aircraft and SDR Scanning  by S2 Underground  (YouTube)
20. Ep. #452: Tracking UFOs w/ Peter Davenport  Into The Parabnormal  (YouTube)
21. RWR Project  Mike's Flight Deck
22. RTL SDR Receiver + GNU Radio: Implementation of the 11 GHz VSRT Solar Interferometer  Cool!
23. Radar Warning Receivers  by Brooke Clarke
24. Intact Seeker Section From an Iron Dome Tamir Interceptor Fell Into Gaza  If you ever come across something like this laying around - TAKE BETTER PICTURES!!!!!
25. Kraken SDR - Passive Radar
26. The Missile Knows Where It Is...  (YouTube)
27. A Stealth Satellite Sourcebook  Version of 2016-03-08
28. Line-Type Radar Pulsers
29. Radar Modulator
30. 2.3 GHz Band Pass Filter  Using a Bud CU123 box, by W6PQL
31. Practical Cavity Filters for the Frequency Range 1 GHz to 4 GHz  by Matjaz Vidmar (S53MV)
32. A Subharmonic RX-Converter for 2.3 GHz
33. S-Band RX  This circuit was originally outlined in a presentation at the 1996 AMSAT-UK Colloquium held at the University of Surrey and printed in the October 1996 issue of AMSAT-UK's Oscar News.
34. S-75 and S-125 Surface-to-Air Missile Information  In Russian...
35. Inside the Iron Dome
36. F-15 Radar Set - PSP Computer Program Development Specification  DS31325-147  (11.3M PDF)

Other Related GBPPR Projects

1. GBPPR Non-Linear Junction Detector
2. GBPPR Radar Experiments
3. GBPPR Drone Detection Technology
4. Furuno Marine Radar Experiments
5. GBPPR Active Denial System
6. GBPPR "Havana Syndrome" Experiments
7. GBPPR GPS (L1) Jammer
8. GBPPR 800 MHz Cellular Phone Jammer
9. GBPPR JAMCAT
10. GBPPR Special Collection Service