[Elecraft] Arecibo antenna collapses

[Andrew Faber]

This is certainly getting way off topic on the Elecraft reflector, but I can’t resist mentioning that I have visited the FAST telescope in Guizhou Province.  Here is a brief explanation from my trip notes (we were guests because my wife is an astronomer with many Chinese colleagues).  It’s odd that they are creating a tourist destination, since normally such telescopes are located to minimize RFI.

“We were met by a driver from FAST in a Honda Odyssey for the two-hour drive to Pingtang, China’s self-proclaimed “Astronomy City.”  There is a huge amount of new construction, as they try to take advantage of the FAST to create a tourist destination. There are new shops and hotels being built, and on the sides of the roads they even have statues and bas reliefs of famous scientists and scientific instruments.  FAST stands for “Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope,” and that’s just what it is – outdoing the 300-meter radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico by far.  It’s in a valley that had a dozen or so homes before they houses were demolished.  It’s 500 meters across, and is partly steerable, since the panels can be somewhat deformed by 4,000 actuators pulling on cables that tug on the panels that comprise the reflective surface.  The receiving “cabin” is suspended on cables attached to six huge (maybe 350-400 feet tall) towers.  So by moving the cabin and pulling on cables, they can apparently track through about 20 degrees, unlike Arecibo, which is fixed in a spherical shape.  The actuators that deform the mirror into a parabola are hydraulic and need only pull about a foot and a half or so on each cable.  Although it was late, we drove down for a quick look at the telescope, since it wasn’t raining.  It’s an unbelievably impressive mechanical construct.  

73, andy ae6y

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: AB2E Darrell
Sent: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 8:54 AM
To: Elecraft Refl
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Arecibo antenna collapses

I