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Preload expanding speed gun technology (7,5)

To fit the crossing clues the answer has to be DOPPLER RADAR. I just can’t see how to get there.

It kinda looks like PRELOAD is anagram fodder but that leaves DPRRA to explain.

Not answered here either!

https://www.crosswordsolver.org/forum/830356/new-scientist-cryptic/

The dodgy thinking behind the clue may be that PRELOAD comprises the only letters used in the answer.

Looks like this is a ‘letter bank’. All the letters you require are contained in preload.

More on ‘letter banks’ here…
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2021/jul/19/crossword-council-4-the-letter-bank

Well spotted, Tatters and Jono. According to the article, the indicator should be more explicit then 'expanding', but an interesting idea.

Another interesting ‘letter bank’ article here, with some better examples I think…
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/going-bank/

Thanks everyone. That’s a new twist for me. Perhaps I should have spotted it sooner as I regularly do the NYT “spelling bee” which allows repeated uses of letters from a word wheel.

Just never seen in in a crossword before.

I can see the `letter bank` device is very useful for setters but ...

when words are `cut` or `unfinished/not started etc` at least the solver only has a finite number of known letters to remove - when words are `expanded` they can include a large number (if not quite infinite) of unknown letters - I`m not sure this is fair!

Tyke, I think it would be more difficult for the setter and the solver for those same reasons.
To give a fair indication of the device in the clue, (as in Jono's second link), it becomes quite lengthy.
Easier to use an anagram, probably one of the reasons we won't see it often.

My clue #7 was meant to read - the indicator should be more explicit than 'expanding'.