A-scope

The original radar display, the A-scope or A-display, shows only the range, not the direction, to targets. These are sometimes referred to as R-scopes for range scope. A-scopes were used on the earliest radar systems during World War II, notably the seminal Chain Home (CH) system. The primary input to the A-scope was the amplified return signal received from the radar, which was sent into the Y-axis of the display. Returns caused the spot to be deflected downward (or upward on some models), drawing vertical lines on the tube. These lines were known as a "blip" (or "pip"). The X-axis input was connected to a sawtooth voltage generator known as a time base generator that swept the spot across the display, timed to match the pulse repetition frequency of the radar. This spread out the blips across the display according to the time they were received. Since the return time of the signal corresponds to twice the distance to the target divided by the speed of light, the distance along the axis directly indicates