The designing, manufacturing, and testing of a dual-band feed system for the Parkes radio telescope

Author

Granet, C. ; Zhang, H.Z. ; Forsyth, A.R. ; Graves, G.R. ; Doherty, P. ; Greene, K.J. ; James, G.L. ; Sykes, P. ; Bird, T.S. ; Sinclair, M.W. ; Moorey, G. ; Manchester, R.N.

Volume

47

Issue

3

fYear

2005

fDate

6/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

13

Lastpage

19

Abstract

This paper presents the designing, manufacturing, and testing of a dual-band feed system for the Parkes radio telescope (Australia). The feed system consists of a coaxial horn and associated feed components to operate in the 648-712 MHz and 2.6-3.6 GHz frequency bands. The manufacturing of such a feed system was challenging, and we present the innovative solutions that were devised to fabricate the different parts of the feed system. Preliminary measurements indicate that the overall system, feed and reflector, is working to operational expectations, and valuable scientific results have already been obtained using the simultaneous dual-frequency capability.

Keywords

antenna testing; horn antennas; multifrequency antennas; radiotelescopes; reflector antenna feeds; 2.6 to 3.6 GHz; 648 to 712 MHz; Parkes radio telescope system; coaxial horn antenna; dual-band feed manufacturing; dual-band feed system design; dual-band feed testing; dual-frequency capability; radio astronomy; reflector antenna; reflector antenna feed; Antenna feeds; Australia; Coaxial components; Dual band; Horn antennas; Manufacturing; Optical design; Radio astronomy; Reflector antennas; System testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1045-9243

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MAP.2005.1532537

Filename

1532537