The statistics of low frequency radio interference at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory

TL;DR

This paper characterizes the low-frequency radio interference environment at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory using data from the BIGHORNS instrument, providing statistical models to aid future observations.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed statistical analysis of RFI at MRO in the 70-300 MHz range, including modeling of RFI occupancy and signal power distributions.

Findings

RFI occupancy varies over time and frequency.

Signal power distribution can be modeled with specific statistical functions.

Data supports improved observation planning at MRO.

Abstract

We characterize the low frequency radio-frequency interference (RFI) environment at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), the location selected for the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array. Data were collected from the BIGHORNS instrument, located at the MRO, which records a contiguous bandwidth between 70 and 300 MHz, between November 2014 to March 2015 inclusive. The data were processed to identify RFI, and we describe a series of statistics in both the time and frequency domain, including modeling of the RFI occupancy and signal power as a series of distribution functions, with the goal of aiding future scientists and operation staff in observation planning.