[asapmembers] message from Jim Breakall

[Brett Isham]

Hello Joanna and All,

I think we all need to think beyond just rebuilding another Arecibo or FAST
type of telescope.  Here are just a few statistics to consider and some
other ideas as we move forward.

I know that ideas have been floated around for many years of all kinds of
designs.  We all know of the SKA that needs $1B this year and also the
James Webb telescope that has a cost of $10B (2016 dollars).

Some have said to rebuild Arecibo that it will cost $350M.  This is not
from any report but just from numbers I have heard.

The physical capture area of Arecibo is pi * 500^2 = 785,398 sq ft.
A 100 ft diameter dish has a physical area of pi * 50^2 = 7854 sq ft.

That means that one hundred 100 ft dishes would have the same area as that
of Arecibo.

A big advantage of the 100 dish system is that each dish could have its own
Software Defined Radio (SDR) for post-processing and beamforming.  This
would be a big advantage compared to the single feed present Arecibo
system.

Also, if a transmitter module was incorporated in each dish, then if each
had a power of 25 kW (not difficult with solid-state amplifiers), then the
total power would be 2.5 MW, the same as the present 430 MHz system for
peak power.

I know this is just a very basic proposal and suggestion, but I just wanted
to state that we should consider all kinds of ideas if we are given the
opportunity to build a new system.

Take care, and I will be happy to take part of any such thinking for the
future.

When the James Webb telescope costs $10B, $100 to $350M seems like a
bargain would you not all agree?

If each 100 ft dish cost $1M, then that would be $100M.

Thanks for listening from somebody that first showed up at Arecibo when it
was only 11 years old.  That is a total time of being associated with
Arecibo for 46 years.

Cheers,  Jim

James K. Breakall
Professor, Electrical Engineering

225 Electrical Engineering East
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802

Cell Phone: 814-883-6521
Email: jimb at psu.edu
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