Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Sniffin, R. W..
When RF waves pass through the solar corona and solar wind regions close to the Sun, strong scintillation effects appear at their amplitude, frequency and phase, especially in the regions very close to the Sun (less than 4 solar radius).
The design and current status of the ORION mobile VLBI station is described. The station consists of a five-meter antenna, a receiving and recording system installed in a mobile antenna transporter, and an electronics transporter. The station is designed for field operation by a two-person crew at the rate of two sites per week. The various subsystems are described in detail, including the antenna, housing facilities for electronics and crew, microwave equipment, receiver, data acquisition subsystem, frequency and timing subsystem, phase calibration, monitoring and control, water vapor radiometer, and communications.
The system, designed around a commercially available process controller, is described. The hardware design, selection of the process control equipment, the design of the interface to other systems, and the analog monitor and process control assembly used to operate the equipment from the MV-3 central computer are discussed.