Wideband Observing

The wideband observing setup provides the widest possible bandwidth for a given observing band, with channel spacing depending on the number of polarization products.

Wideband & Subarray Correlator Options
Polarization products Channel spacing
Full (RR, RL, LR, LL) 2   MHz
Dual (RR, LL) 1   MHz
Single (RR or LL) 0.5 MHz

For the low-frequency bands (L, S, C, X, and Ku bands) this uses the 8-bit samplers to provide a total of 2 GHz of bandwidth per polarization. The three highest-frequency bands (K, Ka, and Q bands) employ the new 3-bit (wideband) samplers, providing a total of 8 GHz of bandwidth; in this case all subbands are 128 MHz wide. In many frequency bands the total processed bandwidth is less than that delivered by the front-end. In those cases the observer may independently tune two 1 GHz baseband pairs when using the 8-bit samplers, or four 2 GHz baseband pairs when using the 3-bit samplers. The (fairly mild) tuning restrictions are described in the section on VLA Frequency Bands and Tunability.

Connect with NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory are facilities of the U.S. National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

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