A wide-band, active antenna system for long wavelength radio astronomy

Abstract

We describe an "active" antenna system for HF/VHF (long wavelength) radio astronomy that has been successfully deployed 256-fold as the first station (LWA1) of the planned Long Wavelength Array. The antenna system, consisting of crossed dipoles, an active balun/preamp, a support structure, and a ground screen has been shown to successfully operate over at least the band from 20 MHz (15 m wavelength) to 80 MHz (3.75 m wavelength) with a noise figure that is at least 6 dB better than the Galactic background emission noise temperature over that band. Thus, the goal to design and construct a compact, inexpensive, rugged, and easily assembled antenna system that can be deployed many-fold to form numerous large individual "stations" for the purpose of building a large, long wavelength synthesis array telescope for radio astronomical and ionospheric observations was met.

33 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

References in corpus (5)

• Detecting the Rise and Fall of 21 cm Fluctuations with the Murchison Widefield Array
• The LWA1 Radio Telescope
• The 74MHz System on the Very Large Array
• Sensitivity of Antenna Arrays for Long-Wavelength Radio Astronomy
• Surveying the Dynamic Radio Sky with the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array

Cited by in corpus (21)

• The LWA1 Radio Telescope
• The 21 cm Power Spectrum from the Cosmic Dawn: First Results from the OVRO-LWA
• The LWA1 Low Frequency Sky Survey
• First upper limits on the 21 cm signal power spectrum from cosmic dawn from one night of observations with NenuFAR
• Design and Commissioning of the LWA1 Radio Telescope
• Antenna beam characterisation for the global 21cm experiment LEDA and its impact on signal model parameter reconstruction
• The Second Radio Synchrotron Background Workshop: Conference Summary and Report
• Pulsars with NenuFAR: backend and pipelines
• A First Search for Prompt Radio Emission from a Gravitational-Wave Event
• Radio Emission from Red-Giant Hot Jupiters
• Using the Long Wavelength Array to Search for Cosmic Dawn
• An Efficient Feedback Calibration Algorithm for Direct Imaging Radio Telescopes
• Antenna Design and Implementation for the Future Space Ultra-Long Wavelength Radio Telescope
• Probing Jovian Decametric Emission with the Long Wavelength Array Station 1
• Measuring the Earth's Synchrotron Emission from Radiation Belts with a Lunar Near Side Radio Array
• Scattering Parameter Measurements of the Long Wavelength Array Antenna and Front End Electronics
• Improvements to the Search for Cosmic Dawn Using the Long Wavelength Array
• Decoherence in LOFAR-VLBI Beamforming
• Practical Limits in the Sensitivity-Linearity Trade-off for Radio Telescope Front Ends in the HF and VHF-low Bands
• Solar radio bursts observations by Egypt- Alexandria CALLISTO spectrometer: First results
• Modeling of Electromagnetic Radiation using a Dual Four-Potential Representation: From Dipole Blade Radiators to Ribbon Loop-like Antennas