STUDY OF THE PROTOCOL USED FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF RADIO FREQUENCY INTERFERENCE AT CANDIDATE SKA SITES

Recent Publications The author  has written  a number of  papers and reports. These  documents  remain unpublished. So, use at own risk!!!. Publications!

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Project Plan "Plans  are  nothing,  planning is everything".  Plan for the Project

The "RFI Measurement Protocol for Candidate SKA Sites" is a  document compiled by the Working Group on RFI Measurements of the SKA Site Evaluation and Selection Committee. The purpose of this  document is to establish a methodology for the measurement and reporting of RFI at candidates sites. The document lays down the technical specifications, processes  and procedures that need to be followed during the measurement campaign and the instrumentation to be used.  

The "opening of the airwaves" and the increase usage and demand for telecommunications, broadcasting, aircraft DME, domestic microwaves, and other electrical and electronic  appliances has led to a pollution of the RF environment. We are constantly bombarded by all this energy. The universe also bombards us with cosmic  energies which sometimes originated some billion years ago.  These signals tell us about the origin of the universe and what is going -on up there. This knowledge is very important to us. However, the problem is that these desired signals arrive here at micro jansky levels whereas the RF pollution is at mega watt levels.  Since the SKA committee plans to invest billions of rands in building a phenominal radio telescope  that will have "eyes and ears" to pick-up things  that happened billions of years ago, it is important that  an excellent site be chosen  which is free of RFI. Otherwise it will defeat the purpose......................... South Africa is one of a few countries chosen to host the Square Kilometre Array Telescope. Construction of this telescope will commence in 2015.

In most engineering designs deviation from the URS  is inevitable. This is due to things like "scope creep" and lack of clarity and understanding of the needs of the customer. Most URS documents are compiled by non-technical persons and therefore such errors of omissions are expected. Therefore, to counter-act this, an intensive study of the SKA Protocol or URS is required. 

The SKA is arguably the most imperfect and incomplete  document under the sun. My project is to critique this document.