Ultra wideband receiver at Parkes

Planned to begin operation for observations starting in April 2018, the motivations for this new UWB receiver are to match state of the art signal processing and data capture capabilities, reduce the operational load of manual receiver changes and provide continuous coverage of the band: 0.7‐4.2 GHz (6:1).

The receiver design incorporates a flared quad‐ridge outer horn, a central dielectric spear and corrugated skirt. These elements, most of which were made in our machine shop, combine to provide a highly efficient dish illumination that is very stable with frequency.

This receiver will be the most sensitive UWB system at these frequencies and the technology is scalable to other frequencies, leading to the prospect of wider adoption on other telescopes.

Published Papers:

A. Dunning, M. Bowen, M. Bourne, D. Hayman and S. L. Smith, "An ultra-wideband dielectrically loaded quad-ridged feed horn for radio astronomy," 2015 IEEE-APS Topical Conference on Antennas and Propagation in Wireless Communications (APWC), Turin, 2015, pp. 787-790.

URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7300180&isnumber=7300131