A device and a method for the improved directional estimation and decoding by means of secondary radar signals. The device includes: at least one array of antenna elements; a low noise first amplifier and bandpass filter combination connected to a plug-in connector S of the respective antenna elements; a first linear amplifier being connected at a filter output of said combination for amplifying the band-limited signal; a mixer connected to the first linear amplifier for the frequency conversion into a ZF region; a second linear amplifier and bandpass filter combination connected to the mixer output for amplifying and limiting the bandwidth of the signal in the ZF region; a first analog-to-digital converter connected to the second bandpass filter; a configurable signal processor connected to the first analog-to-digital converter; and a processing unit connected to the configurable signal processors.