ELBARA, the ETH L-band radiometer for soil-moisture research

A 1.4 GHz radiometer, ELBARA, was constructed in 2001 at the Institute of Applied Physics, University of Bern, in collaboration with and for studies at ETH in soil-moisture research, especially to infer soil-hydraulic properties from the dynamics of the water content in the top soil. ELBARA is used together with MORA, an older, but equivalent system at 11.4 GHz and with a set of time-domain reflectometer (TDR) sensors. In the normal setup, the radiometers are operated from a tower at incidence angles between nadir and zenith. Here we report on the realization and on features of ELBARA. Results from first measurements in 2002 were presented elsewhere.