Distance Measuring Equipment
Distance measuring equipment (DME) is a transponder-based radio navigation technology that measures slant range distance by timing the propagation delay of VHF or UHF radio signals.
Developed in Australia, it was invented by Edward George "Taffy" Bowen while employed as Chief of the Division of Radiophysics of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Another engineered version of the system was deployed by Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Limited in the early 1950s operating in the 200 MHz VHF band. This Australian domestic version was referred to by the Federal Department of Civil Aviation as DME(D) (or DME Domestic), and the later international version adopted by ICAO as DME(I).
DME is similar to secondary radar, except in reverse. The system was a post-war development of the IFF (identification friend or foe) systems of World War II. To maintain compatibility, DME is functionally identical to the distance measuring component of TACAN.
Read more about Distance Measuring Equipment: Operation, Hardware, Timing, Distance Calculation, Specification, Radio Frequency and Modulation Data, Accuracy, Terminal DME, Future
Famous quotes containing the words distance, measuring and/or equipment:
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea’s foot and marveling at a midge’s humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Why not draft executive and management brains to prepare and produce the equipment the $21-a-month draftee must use and forget this dollar-a-year tommyrot? Would we send an army into the field under a dollar-a-year General who had to be home Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)