Radio Groundstations

Overview

A ground station, earth station, or earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves from astronomical radio sources. Ground stations may be located either on the surface of the Earth, or in its atmosphere.

The Stanford Dish

Background

The Stanford Dish is a 150 ft diameter radio telescope built in 1961 at Stanford University. First used to study the chemical composition of the atmosphere, the station is now used to communicate with satellites and spacecraft using its unique bistatic range radio communicators, where the transmitter and receiver are in separate units. Beside the dish stands a 20-25 megacycle transmitter - the million watt input gives the dish a 300-400 KW radar probe.

Stanford Daily Unveiling Article

The dish is currently owned by SRI International

Bands of Operation

150 MHz to 1.5 GHz as described by this site

Visual Angle of Sky

Other Radio Groundstations

Table 4.1: Network Receiver Node Locations.

City State Latitude (deg) Longitude (deg) Altitude (km)

Anchorage AK 61.175 -149.993 0.031

Atlanta GA 33.748 -84.388 0.313

Augusta ME 44.312 -69.783 0.020

Austin TX 30.267 -97.743 0.305

Blacksburg VA 37.205 -80.417 0.633

Denver CO 40.039 -104.984 1.6475

Edmonton CAN 53.544 -113.491 0.671

Helena MT 46.596 -112.027 1.237

Honolulu HI 21.304 -157.858 0.004

McMurdo ANT -77.845 -75.597 0.034

Miami FL 25.79 -80.13 0.0024

Oklahoma OK 35.468 -97.516 0.396

Olympia WA 47.037 -122.9 0.031

Phoenix AZ 33.446 -112.077 0.340

Pierre SD 44.368 -100.35 0.442

Sacramento CA 38.582 -121.493 0.009

SanJuan PR 18.451 -66.088 0.003

Toronto CAN 43.653 -79.384 0.076

Urbana IL 40.111 -88.228 0.222