Newport FAA Radar Site
Newport FAA Radar Site (1979-Active) - A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Long Range Radar (LRR) site first established in 1979 near Newport, Attala County, Mississippi. The site is used to identify and track military and civilian aircraft movements within a 200-mile radius and to provide air-ground radio communication with those aircraft. Assigned an FAA ID of QNM. Active FAA Radar Site. HistoryThis site became an FAA radar site in 1979, furnishing radar track data to the FAA ARTCCs and to USAF Direction Centers. The initial FAA ARSR-3 search radar remained in operation until it was modified to become a CARSR radar with a 9200S Antenna. The Newport ARSR-3 radar was scheduled to receive an upgrade kit to implement three level weather data processing on 21 Jan 1991. During January thru March 1996, the site participated in the testing of new, larger radomes to accommodate the addition of Mode S Beacon antennas. At that time the site was configured with an ARSR-3 search radar and an ATCBI-5 Beacon set. CARSR RadarThe nationwide replacement program converting FAA legacy radar systems to the CARSR radar configuration was completed by 17 Aug 2015 and Newport FAA Radar Site was a part of that program. Legacy FAA radars underwent a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) that replaced key components in the vintage ARSR-1, ARSR-2, FPS-20, FPS-66 and FPS-67 radars. The CARSR program replaced legacy klystron radar transmitters with a solid-state transmitter as well as renovating the radar receiver and signal processor. The CARSR modification also included common digitizer functionality making a separate common digitizer unnecessary. The Newport FAA Radar Site is now operating with the CARSR radar. The secondary radar at this site is an ATCBI-6 Beacon set. The radar site data is now available to the USAF/NORAD Battle Control System-Fixed (BCS-F) operations centers (EADS & WADS) as well as the FAA Memphis ARTCC (ZME) and adjacent ARTCCs. Other federal agencies have access to the data under the Homeland Security umbrella.
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