A combination drift chamber/pad chamber for very high readout rates

Six medium-sized ({approx}1 {times} 2 m{sup 2}) drift chambers with pad and stripe readout have been constructed for and are presently operating in Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory experiment E-771. Each chamber module actually represents a pair of identical planes: two sets of anode wires, two sets of stripes, and two sets of pads. The wire planes are read out separately and represent X measurements in the coordinate system of the experiment. The twin stripe and pad planes are internally paired within the chamber modules; stripe signals represent Y measurements and pad signals combination X and Y measurements. Signals which develop on the stripes and pads are mirror (but inverted) images of what is seen on the wires. In addition to being used in the off-line pattern recognition, pad signals are also used as inputs to an on-line high transverse momentum (pt) trigger processor. While the techniques involved in the design and construction of the chambers are not novel, they may be of interest to experiments contemplating very large area, high rate chambers for future spectrometers.