Reference: the MIT Haystack SRT

The A.R.G.H. project is based on the Small Radio Telescope (SRT) developed by the MIT Haystack Observatory. The reference manual is the Hardware Installation Manual, compiled by Dustin Johnson in June–August 2012.

What we take from it

• The five-subsystem architecture: dish, feed + LNA, receiver, mount control, data acquisition.
• The construction approach: commercial components, minimal machining, open designs.
• The practical solutions for feed, LNA, cables, pointing and calibration, described in the pages of this section.

What is different

A 2.4 m dish on an equatorial mount, an SDR receiver instead of the analogue one with a PCI card, open-source software in Python and GNU Radio. The comparison is on the System overview page.

For construction details

For mechanical dimensions, electrical schematics and assembly instructions for the feed and LNA, the original manual remains the reference: these pages do not reproduce it. The SRT information given here should be checked against the original document before being used for construction.

Credits: MIT Haystack Observatory, www.haystack.mit.edu; D. Johnson, SRT Hardware Installation Manual, 2012.