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An emergency position-indicating radiobeacon (EPIRB) is a type of emergency locator beacon for commercial and recreational boats, a portable, battery-powered radio transmitter used in emergencies to locate boaters in distress and in need of immediate rescue. In the event of an emergency, such as a ship sinking or medical emergency onboard, the transmitter is activated and begins transmitting a continuous 406 MHz distress radio signal, which is used by search-and-rescue teams to quickly locate the emergency and render aid. The signal is detected by satellites operated by an international consortium of rescue services, COSPAS-SARSAT, which can detect emergency beacons anywhere on Earth transmitting on the distress frequency of 406 MHz. The satellites calculate the position or utilize the GPS coordinates of the beacon and quickly passes the information to the appropriate local first responder organization, which performs the search and rescue. As Search and Rescue approach the search areas, they use Direction Finding (DF) equipment to locate the beacon using the 121.5 MHz homing signal, or in newer EPIRBs, the AIS location signal. The basic purpose of this system is to help rescuers find survivors within the so-called "golden day" during which the majority of survivors can usually be saved. The feature distinguishing a modern EPIRB, often called GPIRB, from other types of emergency beacon is that it contains a GPS receiver and broadcasts its position, usually accurate within 100 m (330 ft), to facilitate location. Previous emergency beacons without a GPS can only be localized to within 2 km (1.2 mi) by the COSPAS satellites and relied heavily upon the 121.5 MHz homing signal to pin-point the beacons location as they arrived on scene.
Radio navigation or radionavigation is the application of radio frequencies to determine a position of an object on the Earth, either the vessel or an obstruction. Like radiolocation, it is a type of radiodetermination.
The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation for night bombing in the United Kingdom. British scientific intelligence at the Air Ministry fought back with a variety of their own increasingly effective means, involving jamming and deception signals. The period ended when the Wehrmacht moved their forces to the East in May 1941, in preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union.
In aviation, the instrument landing system (ILS) is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather. In its original form, it allows an aircraft to approach until it is 200 feet (61 m) over the ground, within a 1⁄2 mile (800 m) of the runway. At that point the runway should be visible to the pilot; if it is not, they perform a missed approach. Bringing the aircraft this close to the runway dramatically increases the range of weather conditions in which a safe landing can be made. Other versions of the system, or "categories", have further reduced the minimum altitudes, runway visual ranges (RVRs), and transmitter and monitoring configurations designed depending on the normal expected weather patterns and airport safety requirements.
Gee, sometimes written GEE, was a radio navigation system used by the Royal Air Force during World War II. It measured the time delay between two radio signals to produce a fix, with accuracy on the order of a few hundred metres at ranges up to about 350 miles (560 km). It was the first hyperbolic navigation system to be used operationally, entering service with RAF Bomber Command in 1942.
Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), is the use of radio waves to determine the direction to a radio wave source. The source may be a cooperating radio transmitter or may be an inadvertant source, a naturally-occurring radio source, or an illicit or enemy system. Radio direction finding differs from radar in that only the direction is determined by any one receiver; a radar system usually also gives a distance to the object of interest, as well as direction. By triangulation, the location of a radio source can be determined by measuring its direction from two or more locations. Radio direction finding is used in radio navigation for ships and aircraft, to locate emergency transmitters for search and rescue, for tracking wildlife, and to locate illegal or interfering transmitters. During the Second World War, radio direction finding was used by both sides to locate and direct aircraft, surface ships, and submarines.
Oboe was a British bomb aiming system developed to allow their aircraft to bomb targets accurately in any type of weather, day or night. Oboe coupled radar tracking with radio transponder technology. The guidance system used two well-separated radar stations to track the aircraft. Two circles were created before the mission, one around each station, such that they intersected at the bomb drop point. The operators used the radars, aided by transponders on the aircraft, to guide the bomber along one of the two circles and drop the bombs when they reached the intersection.
Gee-H, sometimes written G-H or GEE-H, was a radio navigation system developed by Britain during World War II to aid RAF Bomber Command. The name refers to the system's use of the earlier Gee equipment, as well as its use of the "H principle" or "twin-range principle" of location determination. Its official name was AMES Type 100.
A blind approach beacon system or beam approach beacon system (BABS) is an automatic radar landing system developed in the early 1940s.
The Rebecca/Eureka transponding radar was a short-range radio navigation system used for the dropping of airborne forces and their supplies. It consisted of two parts, the Rebecca airborne transceiver and antenna system, and the Eureka ground-based transponder. Rebecca calculated the range to the Eureka based on the timing of the return signals, and its relative position using a highly directional antenna. The 'Rebecca' name comes from the phrase "Recognition of beacons". The 'Eureka' name comes from the Greek word meaning "I have found it!".
The Lorenz beam was a blind-landing radio navigation system developed by C. Lorenz AG in Berlin. The first system had been installed in 1932 at Berlin-Tempelhof Central Airport, followed by Dübendorf in Switzerland (1934) and others all over the world. The Lorenz company referred to it simply as the Ultrakurzwellen-Landefunkfeuer, German for "ultra-short-wave landing radio beacon", or LFF. In the UK it was known as Standard Beam Approach (SBA).
Royal Air Force Lindholme or more simply RAF Lindholme is a former Royal Air Force station in South Yorkshire, England. It was located 3.9 miles (6.3 km) south of Thorne and 6.9 miles (11.1 km) north east of Doncaster and was initially called RAF Hatfield Woodhouse.
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates the waves, and received by another antenna connected to a radio receiver. Radio is widely used in modern technology, in radio communication, radar, radio navigation, remote control, remote sensing, and other applications.
During World War II, the German Luftwaffe relied on an increasingly diverse array of electronic communications, IFF and RDF equipment as avionics in its aircraft and also on the ground. Most of this equipment received the generic prefix FuG for Funkgerät, meaning "radio equipment". Most of the aircraft-mounted Radar equipment also used the FuG prefix. This article is a list and a description of the radio, IFF and RDF equipment.
The low-frequency radio range, also known as the four-course radio range, LF/MF four-course radio range, A-N radio range, Adcock radio range, or commonly "the range", was the main navigation system used by aircraft for instrument flying in the 1930s and 1940s, until the advent of the VHF omnidirectional range (VOR), beginning in the late 1940s. It was used for en route navigation as well as instrument approaches and holds.
C. Lorenz AG (1880–1958) was a German electrical and electronics firm primarily located in Berlin. It innovated, developed, and marketed products for electric lighting, telegraphy, telephony, radar, and radio. It was acquired by ITT in 1930 and became part of the newly founded company Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL) Stuttgart in 1958, when it merged with Standard Elektrizitätsgesellschaft and several other smaller companies owned by ITT. In 1987, SEL merged with the French companies Compagnie Générale d'Electricité and Alcatel to form the new Alcatel SEL.
The Blind Landing Experimental Unit, abbreviated BLEU, was a unit of the British government tasked with creating an early autolanding system for military and civilian aircraft from the late 1940s until the mid-1960s.
Radar, Airborne Interception, Mark VIII, or AI Mk. VIII for short, was the first operational microwave-frequency air-to-air radar. It was used by Royal Air Force night fighters from late 1941 until the end of World War II. The basic concept, using a moving parabolic antenna to search for targets and track them accurately, remained in use by most airborne radars well into the 1980s.
The Diamond-Dunmore system was an early blind landing system developed by Harry Diamond and Francis Dunmore at the National Bureau of Standards in the late 1920s. It was similar to the beam landing systems being developed in the UK and Germany shortly thereafter, but had the added advantage that the directional signal was automatically decoded and displayed on a cockpit indicator, rather than requiring the attention of a radio operator. It also added an optional vertical guidance system to provide a glideslope indication. In spite of the advanced nature of the system, or perhaps because of it, the system does not appear to have been widely used. In contrast, the simpler Lorenz system was widely deployed in Europe.
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- Lake, A (1999). Flying units of the RAF. Shrewsbury: Airlife. ISBN 1-84037-086-6.
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