Radio-Frequency Interference at the McGill Arctic Research Station

Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation

article

T. Moso¹  J. Peterson²  J. L. Sievers³  S. Tartakovsky³  T. Dyson³  H. C. Chiang³  E. Egan³  N. Ghazi¹  T. Ménard³  R. A. Monsalve³ 

[1] School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal;Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University;Department of Physics, McGill University;School of Chemistry and Physics, University of KwaZulu-Natal;School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University;Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción

关键词: Radio astronomy;    site testing;   

DOI  :  10.1142/S2251171721500070

学科分类：天文学(综合)

来源: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

The frequencies of interest for redshifted 21cm observations are heavily affected by terrestrial radio-frequency interference (RFI). We identify the McGill Arctic Research Station (MARS) as a new RFI-quiet site and report its RFI occupancy using 122h of data taken with a prototype antenna station developed for the Array of Long-Baseline Antennas for Taking Radio Observations from the Sub-Antarctic. Using an RFI flagging process tailored to the MARS data, we find an overall RFI occupancy of 1.8% averaged over 20–125MHz. In particular, the FM broadcast band (88–108MHz) is found to have an RFI occupancy of at most 1.6%. The data were taken during the Arctic summer, when degraded ionospheric conditions and an active research base contributed to increased RFI. The results quoted here therefore represent the maximum-level RFI environment at MARS.

【 授权许可】

Unknown