Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Wallace, K. B..
Water-cooled coupler installed in S-band polarization diversity (SPD) cone is used to calibrate receiving-station relay. Coupler operates without arcing at 400 kw and permits accurate calibration of entire system below antenna feed horn. Device has good directivity, contributes less than 0.01 K to system noise temperature, and eliminates saturation of ground station and spacecraft receivers during high-power operation.
Sample data and cumulative distributions of atmospheric noise temperature increase above the quiescent baseline for the calendar years 1977 and 1978 are presented. Comparison is made with the existing Deep Space Network noise temperature statistics.
A description is given of the dual coupler configuration which was installed at DSS 14 for station delay calibrations during the Voyager era. The Z correction values determined for these new and previous configurations are presented.
A dual-directional loop coupler in WR 430 waveguide was installed at DSS 14 as part of the system to measure station range delay. This installation was necessary to provide special test translator signal injection ports for the Voyager near-earth calibration sequence, which required that the SPD maser be bypassed to prevent saturation of the receivers. The design of the dual coupler and testing of this device at high power is discussed.
The techniques for calibrating the translator path by means of a portable zero delay device are described. In addition, some translator path data taken at DSS 14, Goldstone, over a period of about one year is presented.
An X-band low-noise receiving cone with 17-MHz instantaneous bandwidth was built to evaluate the 26-m antenna at the Venus Station (DSS 13), Goldstone, California, at X-band frequencies, and also to provide a means for precise radio source calibrations in this frequency range. These measurments are necessary to provide more accurate antenna gain performance calibrations for the 64-m antenna subnet. The zenith system temperatures with the cone on the ground and on the antenna are 17.5 and 20.8 K, respectively.