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SARAO conducts regular RFI monitoring, both by analysing telescope data as well as independent on-site monitoring. However, some RFI may only emerge after deep integrations and may not be detected by standard RFI flaggers. Users who find any anomalies not noted below are encouraged to inform the observatory by raising a helpdesk ticket under ‘Data quality’‘RFI’.
Frequency occupation
Frequency ranges of the most persistent sources are described in Table 1 and subsequent figures.
Table 1: Summary of major RFI contaminated regions of in the L-band rangefrequency range covered by the MeerKAT receivers.
RFI source | Frequency range (MHz) |
Digital TV (UHF) | 8 MHz “rectangular” broadband: (306 + Channel# x 8) +/- 4 MHz |
GSM (Mobile phones) (UHF + L-band) | 880 - 915 uplink* 925 - 960 downlink |
Aircraft transponders | Multiple <1 MHz bandwidth intermittent signals between 962 and 1213 MHz |
GPS | L1: 1565 - 1585 |
GLONASS | L1: 1592 - 1610 L3: 1202.025 |
Galileo | E1: 1575.42 E5a: 1176.45 E5b: 1207.14 E5 AltBOC: 1191.795 E6: 1278.75 |
Iridium | 1616 - 1626 |
Inmarsat | 1526 - 1554 |
Globalstar | 2483.5 - 2495.0 |
Wi-Fi* | 2400 - 2495 |
Bluetooth* | 2400.0 - 2483.5 |
* The GSM uplink, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth bands should be clear of RFI on the MeerKAT site and are rarely seen. We request that users who do note RFI in these bands report the frequency range and date and time by raising a helpdesk ticket under ‘RFI’.
L-band statistics
There are three major contributors to RFI in the MeerKAT L-band frequency range: Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), Distance Measurement Equipment (DME) on aircraft and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites.
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