Arecibo Technical Information Relevant to Proposal Preparation

1. Proposal policies, submission details, and a web-based cover sheet, can be found at Proposal Form.

2. A guide for new users of the telescope is at Guide for First-time Arecibo Users.

3. Other user-related information is to be found here.

4. Radio sources with declinations in the range -1 deg < Dec < +37.5 deg are visible from Arecibo, and can be tracked over the range of zenith angles between 1.1 and 19.7 deg.

5. Available receivers in the (frequency-agile) Gregorian Dome, their frequency coverage, typical System Temperature, Telescope Gain and current status are listed in the table of receivers.

6. Pulsar, spectral-line, VLBI, and continuum backends are available to exploit all these receivers.

7. In search mode, the newly available PUPPI pulsar backend provides a maximum bandwidth of 800 MHz, up to 4096 spectral channels, and 40.96 microsec minimum sampling time. In addition, 20.48 microsec sampling is possible in on-line folding mode. For more details, potential users can refer to the PUPPI observing and support guide.

8. The Arecibo Mk-5A disc-based recorder for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is available for use with the HSA, EVN and Global networks at all bands up to 10 GHz. Those wishing to include the ultra-high sensitivity of Arecibo in their VLBI observations should submit proposals directly to these networks rather than to Arecibo, but include justification for usage of the 305-m telescope. The maximum data recording rate at Arecibo is currently 1 Gbps, although HSA observations are limited to a maximum data rate of 512 Mbps. eVLBI science runs with the EVN have been made up to 512 Mbps.

9. The Mk-5A system is also available for single-dish baseband-sampled data recording.

(Updated: 24 January 2013)