The development of over-the-horizon radar in Australia

The development of over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) in Australia is so closely tied to the word JINDALEE in the minds of most peple that one might imagine that the history of Defence Science and Technology Organization (DSTO's) Project JINDALEE, spanning the years 1975 to 1985, is the total history of OTHR in Australia. It is not the case. While JINDALEE saw the development of OTHR technology and the commissioning and testing of two experimental OTHR systems, the history extends in both direction outside the decade in which project Jindalee was running. In this Monograph, the story of the OTHR in Australia is sought from its origins in ionospheric soundings in the 1950s to the present. Necessarily much of the story is that of JINDALEE but, fascinating though this is, the earlier work which laid the basis for DSTO's enormously successful project is equally interesting. For it is a record of work which advanced with little official support or recognition and which required the force of several major personalities to keep up its momentum. OTHR was and continues to be an important and high-profile area of DSTO research. It is very apt that, in the Bicentennial year, a record of Australian OTHR research should be published. It is the hope of this monography that the record might prove to be not just a history of events which made up the story of the development of OTHR but also convey something of the flavor of defense research in this country.