>As in, once you turn on your tracking radar, you effectively shine a really bright beacon for anyone to see. If you are the ground station trying to get a lock

>As in, once you turn on your tracking radar, you effectively shine a really bright beacon for anyone to see. If you are the ground station trying to get a lock on the thing that the long-range area radar saw, suddenly you are the brightest target in the area. You might have a few seconds before the plane you are trying to hit sends a missile right down your beam. reminded https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown#Downing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown#Downing " According to Lieutenant Colonel Đorđe Aničić, who was identified in 2009 as the soldier who fired the missiles, they detected the F-117 at a range of about 23 km operating their equipment for no more than 17 seconds to avoid being locked on to by NATO anti-air suppression." Typically (at least in USSR/Russia) a couple of radar stations would take turns each staying on only for those few seconds.