Calibration of an airborne multiparameter precipitation radar with an active radar calibrator

A calibration experiment of an airborne precipitation radar was conducted by using an active radar calibrator (ARC). The airborne radar, which is named CAMPR (CRL´s airborne multiparameter precipitation radar), was completed in 1995. Since a major purpose of CAMPR is to provide validation data for the first space-borne Precipitation Radar (PR) onboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, the radar system parameters must be accurately determined. Three flight experiments ware conducted with the ARC, which was developed for calibration of the TRMM Precipitation Radar. The ARC was located on the roof of a building. The results are (1) the radar echo thought the ARC was identified clearly with a 30 μs delay both onboard the A-scope monitor and at the CAMPR acquired data, (2) the levels of the ARC echoes were consistent with the estimated ones from designed specifications of CAMPR. This experiment result is used to fix the radar system gain of CAMPR