The STFC Degreane Radar Wind Profiler (RWP) was installed at Chilbolton Atmospheric Observatory (CAO) by the Met Office in 2009-2019 and ownership was transferred to STFC in 2021. It operates at 1290 MHz in the L-band but these RWPs tend to be called a UHF Doppler radars in the literature. This was a custom made instrument manufactured by Degreane Horizon.

The RWP consists of five panels to emit and receive up to five separate beams, a vertical beam from the central panel and four other beams orthogonal to the central beam. The antenna for the vertical beam is four times the standard area of 4m2. This reduces the beam width from 8.5degrees to 5.5degrees for it to be of use for turbulence studies.

The RWP measures signal intensity and calculated wind speed and direction under all weather conditions. At this frequency 'Clear air' radars detects echoes caused by Bragg scatter from small irregularities due to refractive index inhomogenieties caused by turbulence. Stronger Rayleigh scattering occurs in the presence of hydrometeors.

The radar can operate in up to two modes simultaneously: a low altitude mode with a 1000 ns pulse and a high altitude mode with a 2500 ns pulse. The radar typically returns wind profiles from around 75 to 3500 m and can be used to measure the depth of the convective boundary layer and the position of atmospheric convective "lids". The measurement frequency may vary depending on set up for the instrument deployment, but data archived with the British Atmospheric Data Centre are typically averaged over 15 minutes or 5 minutes. The averaging period used for the data is indicated in the archived data.

This instrument is known as the STFC radar wind profiler 1, with designation stfc-wind-profiler-1.
Specifications of the STFC wind profiler 1
Transmitter Frequency 1290 MHz
Transmitter Bandwidth 10 MHz
Beam Width 8.5°
Peak Power 3500 W
Antenna gain 25 dBi
Antenna area 4m2
Average power 'low altitude mode' 40 W
Average power 'high altitude mode' 100 W
Minimum height 75 m
Maximum height 4.5 - 8 km dependent on atmospheric conditions and pulse length
Resolution dependent on pulse width 75 m to 375 m
Instrinsic wind speed accuracy < 1m/s
Instrinsic wind direction accuracy < 10°
Periodicity of profile computation 15 minutes as standard, but adjustable from 1 minute
Operational temperature -20 °C to 30 °C
Operational relative humidity 5% to 95 % without condensation
Resistance to wind 20 m/s (average) 40 m/s (gusts)
Power supply 230 V +10% -15 %, single phase