Receiving System For Ionosphere Research / Uztverošā Sistēma Jonosfēras Pētīšanai

Abstract

The RT-32 radio telescope at Irbene has been used in the VLBI experiments for studying the ionosphere by its transradiation with the signals from Navstar GPS and GLONASS satellites. The VLBI station at Irbene is equipped with a modular receiver system operating on 1.6 GHz and consisting of off-the-shelf RF components (Mini Circuits Ltd.). In the secondary focus of RT-32 a four-helix antenna array is installed. The implemented receiver system has successfully been employed in the experiments as a part of multi-element radiointerferometer, with interferometric echoes registered from all the observed satellites.

Low-Cost L-Band Receiving System Front-End for Irbene RT-32 Cassegrain Radio Telescope

“…Its secondary focus vertex room is intended for a single receiver feed system and currently a cryogenic C-X band receiver is installed there. There were attempts to implement L-band receivers in existing RT-32 system based on a helical antenna array as a feed antenna [1], [2], but due to specific application of satellite signal reception, its performance specification was less constrained; as a result, sensitivity of these designs were not sufficient for astronomy involving natural sources. In addition, due to a feed solution, only a single polarization channel was available and manual installation of receiver before observation was required which increased maintenance cost, decreased frequency band agility, and complicated the calibration.…”