Cambridge University Press, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 1(18), p. 105-113, 2001
DOI: 10.1071/as01006
Full text: Download
Digital signal processing is one of many valuable tools for suppressing unwanted signals or interference. Building hardware processing engines seems to be the way to best implement some classes of interference suppression but is, unfortunately, expensive and time consuming, especially if several mitigation techniques need to be compared. Simulations can be useful, but are not a substitute for real data. The CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility has recently commenced a "software radio telescope" project designed to ll the gap between dedicated hardware processors and pure simulation. In this approach, real telescope data are recorded coherently, then processed o-line. This paper summarises the current contents of a freely available database of base band recorded data that can be used to experiment with signal processing solutions. It includes data from the following systems: single dish multi-feed receiver, single dish with reference antenna, and an array of six 22-meter antennas with and without a reference antenna. Astronomical sources such as OH masers, pulsars and continuum sources subject to interfering signals were recorded. The interfering signals include the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russian equivalent GLONASS, television, microwave links, a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite, various other transmitters, and signals leaking from local telescope systems with fast clocks. Data are available on compact disk for use in general purpose computers, or as an input to laboratory hardware prototypes. Keywords: instrumentation: detectors, interferometers, techniques: interferometric, methods: data analysis 1