Development
First tests of what would become the "Freya" were conducted in early 1937, with initial delivery of an operational radar to the Kriegsmarine in 1938 by the GEMA company.
Apparently, Germany paid a lot more attention to radar development at this time than Great Britain later in the war. The Freya radar was already more advanced than its British counterpart, Chain Home. It operated on a 1.2 m (3.9 ft) wavelength (250 MHz) while Chain Home used 12 m. This made for a drastically higher resolution of the German system, which therefore was able to detect much smaller objects.
Because of its complex design, only eight Freya stations were operational when the war started, resulting in large gaps between the covered areas. The British Chain Home radar, although less advanced and more prone to errors, could be installed a lot quicker, which meant that the complete Chain Home network was in place in time for the Battle of Britain.
Freya supported an early version of IFF. Aircraft equipped with the FuG 25a "Erstling" could be successfully queried across ranges of over 100 km.
The "AN" version gained a switchable phasing line for the antenna. Switching in the phasing line led to a phase displacement of the antenna's radiation pattern and with that, a "squinting" to the left or right. This enabled the system in effect to switch from the rather broad "scanning for maxima" to narrow conical scanning. In that mode, a skilled operator could achieve an angular resolution of .1°.
Read more about this topic: Freya Radar
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