Tour of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Central Development Laboratory

April 2003 Section Meeting

When: Thursday, April 3, 2002

The meeting opened with an introductory presentation by Skip Thacker that explained the purpose of the NRAO, described what they do at the Central Development Laboratory, and showed examples of some of the custom devices and circuits they have produced. The PowerPoint presentation can be viewed at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/epo/powerpoint/. (There are links to both a .ppt file and a .pdf file of the presentation on this page.) The CDL's primary activities include the following:

• Low-noise Amplifiers
• Passive electromagnetic devices
• Mixers
• Local Oscillators
• IF Amplifiers
• Correlators
• Custom multi-layer electronic assemblies

After the presentation, we split up into smaller groups and proceeded on the tour. We visited the amplifier assembly and test areas (Gerry Petencin was the guide), the local oscillator labs (Kamaljeet Saini was the guide), the custom machine shop (Tony Marshall was the guide), the SIS (superconducting-insulating-superconducting) mixer assembly and test labs (John Effland was the guide). The tour concluded with a summary and final question & answer session for the entire group.

We'd like to thank the NRAO staff for organizing the tour for us - it was one of the most interesting and well attended meetings we've ever had.

For additional information about NRAO, please visit the NRAO's web site.