Advantages of Bistatic Mutiple-Doppler Networks:

• It is much cheaper to buy and operate a bistatic receiver than a Doppler radar.  A bistatic receiver costs about $40,000 and takes about $4,000 per year to operate.  If you were to buy an 88-D, it would cost you about $3,500,000.  Operating expenses for the 88-D's run about $350,000 per year.
• You get simultaneous measurements from only one source of illumination.  Anotherwords, u,v,w fields are from co-temporal data and are true snapshots.  With two radars, they do not always scan the same point in space at the same time.  In a rapidly evolving storm, this will cause errors in the retrieved winds.
• Realtime multiple-Doppler syntheses are less computationally intensive than computing dual-Doppler winds from two radars.

• Only need one transmitter.
• Note that we now have a national network of 88-D's deployed around the country.  In addition, the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) network exists near many airports around the country.
• Unlike the VAD technique, one does not have to assume the flow field is linear.  Hence, one can derived winds near boundaries which may be important for wind shear detection, convective initiation, etc....
• Single Doppler data can be difficult to interpret.
• Wind field estimates can be overdetermined (more equations than unknowns) reducing uncertainty in the measurements.