Passive radar does not have its own emitter. It uses so-called signals of opportunity emitted by non-cooperative illuminators. During the detection of reflected signals, a direct signal from a non-cooperative emitter is used as the reference signal. Detection of electromagnetic echoes is, in present day radars, performed by finding the maximum of the cross ambiguity function. This function is based on the multiplication of the received signal and the reference signal. Detection of echoes by means of a quadrature microwave phase discriminator QMPD was proposed in the work as an alternative solution for ambiguity function evaluation. This discriminator carries out vectorial summing of the received and the reference signals. The summing operations in QMPD are carried out with the aid of microwave elements and without the use of expensive digital signal processors. Definitions of the phase and phase difference of the so-called simple signals and noise signals were described. A proposal of a passive radar equipped with several independent quadrature microwave phase discriminators was presented. Ideas of algorithms of object detection and of the distance-to-object estimation designed for this radar have been also sketched.