The antecedents and subsequent development of scientific radar in New Zealand

In New Zealand after World War 2 radar techniques were used in various investigations in geophysics and astronomy. Much local expertise had become available from defence laboratories, which had been set up in 1939 and eventually merged into the Radio Development Laboratory, disbanded in 1946. Wartime radar development had in turn been founded on pre-war research in radio propagation and ionospheric research which included the use of pulse ionosondes. Frequent support for the pre-war radio research in both Britain and New Zealand was given by Ernest Rutherford who, throughout his life, retained the interest from his own early researches in radio wave propagation. This paper is a brief survey of events from Rutherford's early experiments in 1894 to present-day research programmes.