Iso Echo Contour Radar

[Bill Smith]

Are all weather radar Iso-Echo Contour ?

I have found quite a few references pointing to monochromatic screens, which had an Iso Echo function.

I have found nothing that says Radar xxx is an Iso Echo Contour radar.

Is it just a generic term for what radar does?

[mcdhu]

Bill,

Us 'oldies' will remember the non-synthetic monochrome radars such as the Ecko 170/190 series where the term 'Iso echo' was used for the facility which 'inverted' returns over a preset value which had the effect of creating a 'hole' in the middle of the cloud return - through which one should not go!

Nowadays, we have happily moved on to synthetic colour radars which can give much more information about the strength of any return using colour.

So the answer to your question is no, but some radars such as those mentioned above did have a facility which was called 'Iso Echo Contouring' - probably still going in HS748 etc.

Cheers,
mcdhu

[woderick]

Further to the above, and as an 'oldie', I seem to recall that the term "Iso Echo" applied to contour was a sort of Ecko Trade Mark for contour circuitry i.e. the inversion of video at a pre-determined level, in trying to verify this found this nice site !
Ecko Radar Systems (http://www.malmesbury-memories.co.uk/aviationindex1.html)

In particular the description of the indicator (HS748, BAC 1-11 for certain) mentions it.

[Bill Smith]

Thanks very much guys