Just a FYI: Does everyone know you can call up Vaisala, Baron or EEC and say, "Please deliver me a C-band (TDWR) or S-band (-88D) radar as soon as possible," and they will have it installed in 3 months or less, assuming a suitable site has been chosen by the customer and there are no licensing issues with the FCC?
The idea that it is going to take 15-22 years to replace the -88D's is utterly absurd. If they are dead set on PAR (which I think is ridiculous because of the cost), go ahead and purchase off-the-shelf radars now, run them for 20 years and--hopefully--the PARs will start to come down in cost.
It is likely almost none of today's meteorologists or chasers remember the nightmare the WSR-57's had become due to them using tubes -- and that the only manufacturer of replacement tubes was in the Soviet Union. NWS finally put in a gap-filler network of WSR-74C radars which were very cheap and worked great.
Remember: KWTV in OKC installed the first operational Doppler radar in 1981. The NWS was 12-16 years (depending on installation dates) behind that, not because they couldn't purchase one off the shelf in the 80's but because they wanted a "customized" version.
The NWS's problem is that, for major systems, they -- like the military -- want to fill it with non-essential bells and whistles that drive the costs way up and take years to design and manufacture. This time, they would be smart just to purchase a super-network of 10cm (S-band) radars to replace the -88D's with ~25 C-band radars to fill in the gaps. Everyone will benefit as compared to their "Radar-Next" program, including the taxpayers.
