Ramona (sensor system)
Ramona is a passive radar from the 1970s of the then Czechoslovak armaments company Tesla (now ERA) in Pardubice . The company's internal designation is KRTP-81 or KRTP-81M for the modernized version. The NATO code name is Soft Ball . Ramona is the successor to the Kopáč sensor system.
System description
Ramona was first used in 1979 as a replacement for the PRP-1 Kopáč system developed in the 1960s, which was phased out in the late 1990s. The Ramona system is arranged semi-mobile, either on a ground-based platform or on a 25-meter-long lattice mast. The mounted on the mast variant weighs 160 tons and had thirteen 138 Tatra / 148 6 × 6 trucks to be transported. The spherical radome housed the receivers and datalink transceivers required to operate three or more stations . It takes 12 hours to commission the system.
The band coverage was 1 to 8 GHz, the main application, the location and tracking of airborne IFF / SSR - transponders and TACAN was installations. Twenty goals could be pursued simultaneously.
The Ramona was considered complicated and cumbersome to use. Experiences that strongly influenced the design of the later Tamara . Seventeen KRTP-81 units were built, 14 were used in the Soviet Union , one in the GDR , one in Syria and one with the ČSLA . In addition, 15 improved KRTP-81M systems were manufactured, most of which were exported.
In the 1980s, the Ramona sensor system was replaced by the mobile KRTP-86 Tamara .