Preserving Radio Silence At the Square Kilometer Array

johnslater writes: The Guardian has a story on the radio silence requirements at the Square Kilometer Array in Australia. The RF requirements for the SKA are far more stringent than at the US National Radio Quiet Zone at Greenbank, to such an extent that the specialized supercomputers to control the array have specially shielded data centers, and the as-yet-unbuilt supercomputer to process the data will be located hundreds of miles away in Perth. To quote Dr John Morgan in the article: "You can guarantee that the thing that SKA will be remembered for ... is going to be the thing you have not thought of. It's the unknown unknown."

Comments

FYI radio astronomers: Beware dodgy microwave oven

[Walking The Walk]

It's all well and good to enforce radio silence in the array's general area, but I hope they employ common sense as well. It took one batch of aussie radio astronomers 17 years to figure out that their dodgy microwave oven was causing intermittent interference; hopefully these guys aren't so clueless as to use unshielded electronics in any proximity to the array. Shielding your data centre is great, but it'll be the guy who forgets to turn off his cell phone that messes up your signal.