NavList:

Jackson, you wrote:
"I think you could transform this abandoned, 1954 radar into a great sundial."

You bet! Here's what I would do:
  Attach a used Android device in a weatherproof housing with a charger connected to a long extension cord (may need several extension cords in series). An app on the device will read GPS data to get latitude and longitude at bootup and UT on a running basis. From UT the device will calculate GHA using simple linear interpolation on an hourly table lasting ten years or more. Then, of course, the difference between longitude and GHA is just the Sun's HA or hour angle which, when converted to hours and minutes is, identical to the local apparent time --"sundial time". A sundial directly displays the Sun's local hour angle! The app will display this time on a bluetooth-linked LED display on the face of the old radar dish, and it will also provide online API access to the sundial time so that other smartphone apps can display the current "Cape Canaveral Radar Sundial Time". The app on the dish will also access the device's camera (or separate light meter) and only report the sundial time when it is bright enough to cast shadows: sundials only measure the sunny hours. How do we pay for this project? We can sell advertising time during the 30 seconds at the bottom of each minute to be displayed on the LED display and also sent to smartphone apps via the API. It will be an awesome radar sundial. We're gonna be rich!

What? Is that not what you had in mind? Is there some other way to turn this radar dish into a sundial?! ;)

Frank Reed