Design and demonstration of an antenna for a new 29-47 MHz radio telescope array

The eight-meter-wavelength transient array (ETA) is a new radio telescope consisting of 12 dual-polarized, 38 MHz-resonant dipole elements which are individually instrumented, digitized, and analyzed in real-time in an attempt to detect rare single dispersed pulses associated with certain astronomical explosions. This paper presents the design and demonstrated performance of ETA´s dipole elements. A inverted V-shaped design combined with an inexpensive active balun having a noise temperature of about 250 K yields sensitivity which is limited only by the external noise associated with the ubiquitous Galactic synchrotron emission over the range 27-49 MHz. The results demonstrate good agreement with a recent theoretical analysis