A 128-channel digital correlation receiver has been built for the GEETEE 1, the low-frequency radio telescope situated at Gauribidanur, South India, (latitude 13°36′12′′ N). The receiver uses a modified doublesideband (DSB) technique. The quadrature samples required for a DSB system are obtained by sampling the digitized intermediate frequency (I.F.) signals by two clocks which are separated in time by one quarter of the period of the I.F. The visibilities required for one-dimensional synthesis are measured using one-bit correlators. A technique to measure amplitude information for the signal using a threshold detector and a one-bit correlator has been developed. The receiver has been successfully used for continuum, spectral-line and pulsar observations. The antenna system of GEETEE and its configuration for one dimensional synthesis are also described in this paper

A simple but effective modification to the conventional CLEAN algorithm is suggested. This modification ensures both stability and speed when CLEAN is applied to maps containing a mixture of point sources and extended structures. The method has been successfully applied to the recently-completed sky survey at 34.5 MHz (Dwarakanath & Udaya Shankar 1990). This survey was made using the Gauribidanur T array (GEETEE)1 in 1-D aperture synthesis mode. Since in this case the ‘dirty beam’ (point spread function) cannot be directly computed, a method to obtain this is discussed in detail. The results of this deconvolution procedure have been encouraging in terms of reduced computing time and improved dynamic range in our maps. This algorithm should find wider application in deconvolving maps which have both extended structures and point sources

This paper describes a wide-field survey made at 34.5 MHz using GEETEE,1 the low frequency telescope at Gauribidanur (latitude 13°36′12′′N). This telescope was used in the transit mode and by per forming 1-D synthesis along the north-south direction the entire observable sky was mapped in a single day. This minimized the problems that hinder wide-field low-frequency mapping. This survey covers the declination range of-50° to + 70° (- 33° to +61° without aliasing) and the complete 24 hours of right ascension. The synthesized beam has a resolution of 26′ x 42′ sec (δ- 14°. 1). The sensitivity of the survey is 5 Jy/beam (1σ). Special care has been taken to ensure that the antenna responds to all angular scale structures and is suitable for studies of both point sources and extended objects

A new, meter-wave radio telescope has been built in the north-east of Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean, at a latitude of -20.14‡. The Mauritius Radio Telescope (MRT) is a Fourier Synthesis T-shaped array, consisting of a 2048 m long East-West arm and an 880 m long South arm. In the East-West arm 1024 fixed helices are arranged in 32 groups and in the South arm 16 trolleys, with four helices on each, which move on a rail are used. A 512-channel digital complex correlation receiver is used to measure the visibility function. At least 60 days of observing are required for obtaining the visibilities up to 880 m spacing. The Fourier transform of the calibrated visibilities produces a map of the area of the sky under observation with a synthesized beam width 4′ × 4.6′ sec(δ + 20.14‡) at 151.5 MHz.

The primary objective of the telescope is to produce a sky survey in the declination range –70‡ to –10‡ with a point source sensitivity of about 200 mJy (3a level). This will be the southern sky equivalent of the Cambridge 6C survey. In this paper we describe the telescope, discuss the array design and the calibration techniques used, and present a map made using the telescope.

A technique to detect man-made interference in the visibility data of the Mauritius Radio Telescope (MRT) has been developed. This technique is based on the understanding that the interference is generally ‘spiky’ in nature and has Fourier components beyond the maximum frequency which can arise from the radio sky and can therefore be identified. We take the sum of magnitudes of visibilities on all the baselines measured at a given time to improve detectability. This is then high-pass filtered to get a time series from which the contribution of the sky is removed. Interference is detected in the high-pass data using an iterative scheme. In each iteration, interference with amplitudes beyond a certain threshold is detected. These points are then removed from the original time series and the resulting data are high-pass filtered and the process repeated. We have also studied the statistics of the strength, numbers, time of occurrence and duration of the interference at the MRT. The statistics indicate that most often the interference excision can be carried out while post-integrating the visibilities by giving a zero weight to the interference points.