Terence James Elkins

In 1980, he developed and published an auroral echo-scattering model to predict the obscuration of targets when the radar transmission path is through the auroral region.

Based on the success of these early experiments, the Department of Defense proposed to deploy a fully operational radar system. This radar system, covering 180° in azimuth, was built at the same locations in Maine. Initial testing was conducted from June 1980 to June 1981. GE Aerospace (now Lockheed Martin Ocean, Radar and Sensor Systems) received a contract in mid-1982 for full-scale development of the AN/FPS-118 program.

Elkins was the recipient of the 1979 Harold Brown Award. The Harold Brown Award is the Air Force's highest honour for research and development.

Elkins was part of a team of Rome Air Development Center (RADC) engineers that developed and constructed components for frequency modulation/continuous wave (FM/CW) radars capable of detecting and tracking objects at over-the-horizon ranges. A prototype radar was installed and evaluated on 15 September 1970. The system incorporated a Beverage array receive antenna (located at Columbia Air Force Station), a high-power transmitter array (located at Moscow Air Force Station), and an operations center (located at Bangor Airport). This prototype became operational on 30 October of that year. Experimental transmissions from the Maine site covered a 60° sector from 16.5° to 76.5° azimuth and from 900 to 3,300 km in range from the radar.

Elkins emigrated from his native Australia to the United States in 1963, at the height of the Space Race, after being recruited by the scientific research program of the United States Air Force. Beginning in the early 1960s, he conducted research focused mainly on the upper atmosphere and ionosphere, and improvements to ground, airborne, and space-based surveillance and reconnaissance systems, including over-the-horizon radar systems.

After completion of his bachelor's degree, Elkins joined the ANARE team that wintered over at Mawson Station in Australian Antarctic Territory, East Antarctica in 1960. The wintering party comprised 33 expeditioners including 12 members of the RAAF Antarctic Flight; the Officer-in-Charge was Hendrick Geysen. That year, Elkins was part of a mechanised and sledging field party that travelled from Mawson Station to the Napier Mountains in Enderby Land, East Antarctica. The men of this expedition, led by fellow Antarctic explorer Syd Kirkby, conducted the first geological surveys of that area of the continent. The highest of this small group of mountains, Mount Elkins, was subsequently named after Dr. Elkins. Other survey teams that year visited the Framnes Mountains, conducted geological and survey work in the Prince Charles Mountains, and visited the Emperor penguin colonies at Taylor Glacier and Fold Island.

Elkins earned his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from University of Melbourne in 1957. He earned his master's degree in Physics and Astronomy from Boston University in 1967. He earned his PhD from the same institution in 1970, publishing a thesis entitled Studies of Ionospheric Irregularity Using Radio Astronomical Techniques.

Terence James Elkins (born 8 March 1936) is an Australian-born American physicist. In 1960, he participated in an expedition from Mawson Station which conducted the first geological surveys of the Napier Mountains in Antarctica. The highest of this group of mountains, Mount Elkins, was subsequently named after him. In 1979, he received the Harold Brown Award, the Air Force's highest honour for research and development, for research he conducted that contributed to the development of the AN/FPS-118 over-the-horizon backscatter (OTH-B) air defence radar system. This system, consisting of six one-megawatt transmitters and their associated horizontal linear phased array antennas, is currently the largest radar system in the world.