Picture taken June 24, 2005
The radar consists of a tall brick tower with a steel pinnacle on top. The brick tower raises to treetop level and houses the equipment. You can hear a lot of noise outside, most likely cooling installations. It does not look like the tower is staffed, though you will often see cars parked for maintenance reasons. Although the brick tower is tall, the trees around it once in a while grow taller and have to be taken down.
Picture taken June 24, 2005
The tower is completely surrounded by trees, lakes, lawns, and paths. Only from specific places, you can get a glimpse of it. Although artificially landscaped, the environment is pleasant to say the least and a large crowd gathers there on days with good weather. It is perfect for strolls, bike trips, and relaxing on the lawns. The radar does not disturb the scene at all. However, the presence of a major airport one kilometer away obviously can be heared once in a while.
Picture taken June 24, 2005
View from the bridge. The radar antenna actually consists of two parts. The bottom part, large and parabolically shaped, is the combined primary radar transmitter and receiver. It sweeps a high-power narrow pulse beam around, and listens for radio echoes in between the pulses. These echoes are transformed into the familiar radar blips on the controller's screen. The top part of the antenna assembly (like a bar) is the secondary radar transmitter and receiver. This one broadcasts transponder 'pings,' to which all planes equipped with a transponder reply with a 'pong'. This reply signal offers three advantages over the primary radar echo: it is very clearly defined (not a bounce, but a clear transmission), it contains a unique ID number for the plane (the squawk code), and it contains the current pressure altitude of the plane. The secondary radar data is usually fed to the computer which creates the data tags for the controller's radar display.