[asac] [almanews] ALMA Memo No. 370

[Carolyn White]

ALMA Memo No. 370

A Comparison of Availability of Major Radio Interferometers

G.H. Tan (ESO/Garching - Germany)

May 14, 2001

This memo gives an overview of historically achieved availability
performance at major radio observatories around the world.  The
instruments analysed, including the Very Large Array, Very Long Baseline
Array and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, have similar
attributes as the proposed ALMA radio telescope.  The goal of this
analysis is to obtain a proper overview on instrument availability and use
this as a basis for determining a suitable objective for ALMA.  Due to the
intrinsic nature of radio interferometers, these systems show a graceful
degradation in performance, which makes it difficult to assess their
availability. For this reason a separate section in this memo is dedicated
to define a practical method, based on experience at the VLA and VLBA, to
calculate availability for a radio interferometer.

View a PDF version of ALMA Memo #370:
     http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma370/memo370.pdf

Download a postscript version of ALMA Memo #370:
     http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma370/memo370.ps

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