Erika (radio beacon)

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Erika was a German precision phased beacon for hyperbola navigation for Luftwaffe combat aircraft towards the end of World War II. It was developed by the C. Lorenz company from 1941 and was a further development of the long-wave radio beacon "Sun" . While VHF receivers (30–33 MHz) were used as with the Knickebein method, the distance between the antennas of 3 wavelengths was similar to the sun method. The much higher frequency compared to the sun method resulted in a correspondingly smaller distance between the antennas of only 30 meters. In addition, there was fine localization, for which antennas were installed at a distance of 30 wavelengths, i.e. 300 meters. The achieved accuracy of the guide beams was 1/100 °. As a result, a target could be hit from a distance of 300 kilometers with a deviation of only ± 100 meters.

However, the development was not finished until the end of 1944, so that the system was no longer used.

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