Abstract
A UHF interferometer system for detecting progression of lightning discharges has been accomplished and applied in the observation of winter thuderstroms occurred in Hokuriku area of Japan. This system, operating at center frequency of 327MHz with a bandwidth of 6MHz and the time resolution of 1μs, consists of five antennas which produce long (5λ/2) and short (1λ/2) baselines in orthogonal directions in a horizontal plane. We confirmed its performance by both experimental tests in a Laboratory and some theoretical simulations. We observed many lightning discharges occurred in winter thunderstorms. The preliminary analysis shows that the system can give us lightning discharges occurred in winter thunderstorms. The preliminary analysis shows that the system can give us the image of the progression of lightning discharges.
