Radio-Frequency Interference at the McGill Arctic Research Station
The frequencies of interest for redshifted 21 cm 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 122 hours of data taken with a prototype antenna stat...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
arXiv
2020
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2012.06521 https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.06521 |
Summary: | The frequencies of interest for redshifted 21 cm 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 122 hours 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 20-125 MHz. In particular, the FM broadcast band (88-108 MHz) 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. : 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation |
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