Radio Frequency (RF) & Wireless Design

Makes me sad to see this go. Knowing the National Science Foundation they probably have a different direction planned for the future. They are no doubt salvaging all the expensive sensor equipment to use it for other things. I can not see much going to waste on this but it is a sad day to see it go. My fear is this may be the first of many.

Jason ;

What's interesting is that for the United States, there is only mild interest in the VLA upgrades but some of the largest are being abandoned due to the negligence for upgrades and repairs.

Also with a down economy for the US, things are getting tougher, but perhaps the useful lifespan for the array has passed considering that its over 50 years old. So there's always hope that after they tear it down that they replace it with something much better. :-)

However the largest threat is something that we don't even think about : RF Interference from all our gadgets ! This is why in Green Bank, VA the entire community is not allowed to use cell phones, WiFi, or any other RF emitting devices. So even remote areas are being compromised. This is why these radio telescopes are far from any nearby towns, let alone cities.

China has created the world's largest dish at over 500m but they also built a town right next to it that will cause RF interference into the dish - go figure ! https://www.wired.com/story/china-fast-worlds-largest-telescope-tourists/

There's another world's largest array as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) that is going to cost one BILLION dollars in south Africa and Australia, but funding is running short since Germany pulled out :

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00089-2

However the largest problem with terrestrial arrays is forthcoming for mega constellation satellites :

https://www.universetoday.com/148263/radio-astronomers-are-worried-about-mega-constellations-and-the-square-kilometer-array/

So perhaps the better bet is yet to come from the space telescopes and the James Webb being launched early next year :

https://webbtelescope.org/

Hello again Steven,

I was only just watching a documentary on the VLA the other day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqX9vLj3_7w&t=946s

Yes it is a very sad situation and my fear is it is only the beginning.

I have said for some time many people are losing faith specifically in certain areas of the scientific community.

I have been waiting for the James Webb for some time. I am quite eager to see the results of that one.

Yes I guess you are correct signal congestion will become a much bigger problem for terrestrial arrays as we go in to the future. I guess the future will be space based platforms but they would have to advance technology considerably to make it cost more effective.

Jason ;

Well what's sad is the end of an era for many things as they become obsoleted and replaced with never technologies as well as how society is changing.

It like how the steam engine ended sailing ships, or how the locomotives ended the west, or how cars replaced horses, ... etc.

We live in a highly accelerated era of technological changes and i have lived the era before computers and cell phones when ham radio was a big excitement, so some things are good and others, well people have moved on.

Just look at this way : you are living in the early stages of commercialization of space and soon may see the colonization of the moon or Mars ! With that may come new really advanced 'space' telescopes on the moon or Mars that will no be impeded by atmospheric conditions or stray RF interference.

The ear of space telescopes started with the Hubble, but that is really dated and the James Webb telescope will be much better, so there will be even amazing photos of deeper space yet to come soon.

My bigger worry is the congestion of space with junk and whether we start to clean up all the debris we are sending up there. With the advent of the micro-satellites, there will be an explosion of space junk that will cloud even the most basic Earth terrestrial telescopes.

So as the saying goes - see 'em while you can !!

Steven