The new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, has announced the intent of procuring the advanced OTH radar technology from Australia following direct talks with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The new radar, to be known in Canada as the Arctic Over The Horizon Radar (A-OTHR), will require an investment in the region of 6 billion Canadian dollars (circa 4,1 billion USD at current rates).

This particular radar type  uses High Frequency transmissions and the “sky wave / backscatter” effect to achieve extraordinarily long detection ranges, although with much lower fidelity in the accurate measurement of the position of the targets. The radar uses massive arrays of antennas spread out over a wide area, with the transmission and receiver sites usually geographically displaced. The radio waves are “bounced” off the ionosphere to reach their intended coverage area over the horizon, overcoming the Earth’s curvature. It is useful against both surface and air targets.

Australia currently operates the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN) which consists of 3 separate over-the-horizon radars: the R1 site is in Longreach, Queensland, and covers the area to the north-east of Australia; the R2 site is in Laverton, Western Australia, and its coverage reaches deep over the Indian Ocean, while the R3 site at Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory, faces directly north over Indonesia. The JORN network was built up starting in the 1990s, but the Jindalee development started all the way back in 1970. The name “Jindalee”, fittingly, it taken from aboriginal language and is a word that indicates a place the eye cannot see.

Lockheed Martin was originally part of the construction of the JORN network, while in more recent times BAE Systems Australia has taken the leadership of a major, 1.2 billion Australian dollars hardware and software upgrade (Phase 6) for the system, alongside sustainment support out to 2028.

JORN monitors a sea and air area of 37,000 square kilometres, achieving detection ranges of up to 3,000 km.

The purchase of this system was already in Canada’s plans, it must be said, as part of a plan for the modernisation of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)  sensor chain agreed with the United States in 2022. In 2023, Canada and the US had reaffirmed the intent of procuring “two next generation Over-the-Horizon Radar (OTHR) systems covering the Arctic and Polar approaches”, with the first to be in place by 2028.

Carney’s “sudden” decision to agree the purchase directly with Australia, without further coordination with the US, is simultaneously an olive branch to Trump, represented by Canada’s effort in spending and doing more for defence and for the shared interest of security in the high north, and a way for Canada to signal a “reduced reliance” on the US.

There are no details at present on the configuration the A-OTHR will assume and how many sites it might include. Details will have to be worked out in cooperation with Australia.

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