Distortion of Weather Radar Signals at the Presence of Precipitation on the Emitting Surface of Antennas

The features of an experimental study of the effect of precipitation, such as, water, snow, ice and their mixture on the surface of cm-wave meteorological radar antennas on signal parameters because of decreasing the gain are shown. Also, the results of synchronous measurements of the reflector antenna gain, rain intensity and amount of precipitation on the reflector are presented. It is shown that the presence of even a small amount of moisture leads to a significant decreasing the gain. This is especially important for meteorological radars at measuring the absolute values of the power of signals reflected from meteorological objects.