Patent ID: 7821446

Claim:
An ultra low power long range radar system, comprising: a broadband high frequency loop antenna configured to simultaneously transmit a transmit signal into the ionosphere and receive a reflected signal from the ionosphere; a transmit path originating with a local oscillator configured to provide a high frequency sweep transmit signal; a receive path comprising at least a balun for receiving the reflected signal from the antenna, a mixer for converting the reflected signal to a baseband signal, and a diplexer for diplexing an input signal from the baseband signal; wherein the transmit signal is delivered to the balun, such that the transmit path is shared with the receive path at the balun and to the antenna; wherein the balun is configured to divide the transmit signal between the transmit path forward to the antenna and a mixer path to the mixer, and to divide the reflected signal from the antenna between the mixer path and a local oscillator path.