Abstract. We first show that for some kinds of signals a ''bandwidth and time duration reduction technique'' can be used to simulate waveform distortions caused by moving targets, that is, it is correct to measure the waveform distortions at very large TB with relatively small by reducing TB and increasing while keeping TB unchanged, where T is the duration of the transmitted signal, B is the bandwidth and is the relative speed of targets. We then study the waveform distortions in SAR signals caused by moving antenna. Based on the bandwidth and time duration reduction technique, a lot of time and memory are saved in simulations. We then confirm by simulations that waveform distortions do pose problems when processing very large bandwidth and long duration SAR data using conventional SAR processing methods. Finally we propose the concepts of wideband and narrowband processing of SAR data. Models are set up for wideband and narrowband SAR data processing, and new methods are presented for reconstructing targets using the proposed models. Simulations show that the methods can improve the quality of the simulated SAR images.