Preparation of the VIRAC Radio Telescope RT-32 for e-VLBI Observations

Abstract

Abstract A fully steerable parabolic antenna RT-32 with the mirror diameter 32 m owned by the Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre (VIRAC) is available for fundamental and applied research in radio astronomy. The RT-32 is supplied with the receiving systems for the frequency range 327 MHz to 12 GHz. The equipment allows recording of signals in two channels with a bandwidth up to 1 GHz in each. The system has a high stability of the time frame, which is prerequisite for the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations. In 2012 the RT-32 data receiving systems and the network infrastructure were prepared for the work in the e-VLBI mode. The systems were tested together with the Torun observatory, and later in the EVN e-VLBI observation session at 5 GHz. Experiments have shown that RT-32 is able to observe at a frequency range of 5 GHz and transfer the data in the e-VLBI mode with the speed up to 1 Gbps. The paper describes the current status of RT-32, the application of its receiving and data acquisition units for the e-VLBI observations and the results of the conducted e-VLBI observational experiments.