Architecture of an HF Skywave Radar Network

The HF Skywave Radar Network described is the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) being designed and built for the Australian Government. Due for final acceptance in 1997, its purpose is chiefly to provide an umbrella of surveillance over the air and sea space surrounding the northern half of Australia. With surveillance generally stretching from within the coastline to some thousands of kilometres beyond the coastline, the coverage is about 20,000,000 km². The purpose is to provide robust affordable blanketing surveillance over Australia´s onshore and offshore territories, its economic resource zone, and the approaches to its mainland. Additionally, it furnishes data of community value such as wind and sea state maps to the Bureau of Meteorology and vertical soundings of the ionosphere to the Department of Science, both in real time