by reusing one or more of the wsod devices that provide fine delay it should be noted that if one or more wsod devices are reused for multiple independent signals or for multiple sub apertures at the same level it will generally be necessary to include one or more wavelength demultiplexers in the network for separating the respective mutually orthogonal sets of operating wavelengths after the last reused device as noted above the spatial selectivity and beam steerability achievable using arrays of multiple antennas are highly advantageous for radar communications and other radiofrequency applications the signal processing that underlies these capabilities of antenna arrays is beamforming i e the coherent combination of the signals going to or from the respective antenna elements beamforming is typically achieved using electronic phase shifters which are well known however the performance of electronic phase shifters is frequency dependent for that reason beamforming is disadvantageously limited in bandwidth when it is performed solely by using electronic phase shifters in accordance with the invention a wavelength switched optical network such as that described above is used to provide true time delay for at least part of the beamforming that is the timing of the phase fronts propagating from individual antenna elements during operation in the transmission.