Aviation Glossary

At Dauntless, our editorial staff maintains the web's largest unified glossary of aviation terms. This glossary is built from a combination of official, quasi-official, and proprietary sources (including original material that we develop oursselves). Uniquely, we often provide multiple definitions of a given term so that you can find that which best applies to you. In order to maximize your learning efficiency, this glossary (and similar ones for our international users) is incresingly fully integrated into our aviation learning apps, including our FAA written test prep and FAA practical test prep software and apps. If you like this glossary, you'll love them with their polished learning environments and world's best and clearest content (please do give them a try.).

Receiver

A device that converts radio waves into signals we can hear or see.

source: ARRL Ham Radio Glossary

A circuit that accepts signals from a transmission medium (which can be wireless or wired) and decodes or translates them into a form that can drive local circuits.

Examples:

A radio receiver that detects and demodulates the signal from the airwaves
An ultrasonic receiver that turns ultrasound signals into electrical signals
A line receiver that receives signals from a wire or backplane
A standard interface receiver (e.g., USB, serial, LVDS)
A fiber optic device that translates light pulses into electrical signals

source: Electrical Engineering Glossary

The electronic device which detects the backscattered radiation, amplifies it and converts it to a low-frequency signal which is related to the properties of the target.

source: NOAA National Weather Service Glossary

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Disclaimer: While this glossary in most cases is likely to be highly accurate and useful, sometimes, for any number of editorial, transcription, technical, and other reasons, it might not be. Additionally, as somtimes you may have found yourself brought to this page through an automated term matching system, you may find definitions here that do not match the cotext or application in which you saw the original term. Please use your good judgement when using this resource.