Radar sea echo in UHF in coastal zone: experimental observations and theory

We present the results of a preliminary experiment of remote sensing of near-shore environment by an UHF radar initially devoted to atmospheric wind profiling. VV and HH Doppler signatures of the sea surface during a one-day experiment are analyzed in terms of signal decay with distance and Doppler spectra morphology. Marked differences between VV ("slow" scatterers) and HH spectra ("fast" scatterers) were observed. VV spectra could be partly reproduced considering a first-order Bragg theory.