Voyager 1 Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) Highband receiver daily files during Jupiter Encounter (1979-02-01 to 1979-04-13). Associated with these binary data are a series of quick-look GIF spectrogram plots created using the binary data. The plots are available for both polarization channels. These binary data were also converted into IDL save sets. The data set provides 48 second resolution highband radio mean power data in units of millibels. The high-band receiver consisted of 128 channels of 200 kHz bandwidth each, with center frequencies spaced at 307.2 kHz intervals from 1.2 MHz to 40.4 MHz. The highband receiver was designed especially for the observation of Jovian decametric radio emissions. The PRA radiometer was usually operated routinely in the so-called POLLO sweeping mode, in which all 198 frequency channels of the high- and low-band receivers together were swept in 6 sec, dwelling at each channel for 25 msec. From one step to the next in the channel switching sequence, the antenna polarization sense was reversed, i.e., was changed from RH to LH or vice versa. Thus the time required for making a measurement of both the RH and LH intensity components at both senses of elliptical polarization at a given frequency was 12 sec. The data consists of successive averages of 4 pairs of RH and LH intensity measurements, each average spanning an interval of 48 sec. The format of these binary data files is as follows: file separation variable year, month, day information millisecond decimal value of the day Integer array (128,2) for 128 left and right channels (NOTE 128 channels for Hi-band; 70 channels for Lo-band) file separation variable There is an IDL program that reads these files into an IDL-format save set. See Information URL for a link to this file. The data are calibrated and are given in units of 'millibels' which is 1000 times the log of the received power. Zero millbels corresponds to approximately 1.4 x 10^-21 W m^-2 Hz^-1, however, this value is never seen in practice. The minimum values detected, which includes receiver internal and spacecraft generated noise, are about 2300 to 2400 millibels, or about 3.5 x 10^-19 W m^-2 Hz^-1; even higher values are seen at the very lowest frequencies. Note: The polarization indicated is the received polarization, not necessarily the emitted polarization. Correct interpretation of the received polarization depends on the antenna plane orientation relative to the radio source. A good description of this concept can be found in Leblanc Y., Aubier M. G., Ortega-Molina A., Lecacheux A., 1987, J.Geophys. Res. 92, 15125 and in Wang, L. and Carr, T.D., Recalibration of the Voyager PRA antenna for polarization sense measurement, Astron. Astrophys., 281, 945-954, 1994. and references therein.
Version:2.3.0
Voyager 1 Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) Highband receiver daily files during Jupiter Encounter (1979-02-01 to 1979-04-13). Associated with these binary data are a series of quick-look GIF spectrogram plots created using the binary data. The plots are available for both polarization channels. These binary data were also converted into IDL save sets. The data set provides 48 second resolution highband radio mean power data in units of millibels. The high-band receiver consisted of 128 channels of 200 kHz bandwidth each, with center frequencies spaced at 307.2 kHz intervals from 1.2 MHz to 40.4 MHz. The highband receiver was designed especially for the observation of Jovian decametric radio emissions. The PRA radiometer was usually operated routinely in the so-called POLLO sweeping mode, in which all 198 frequency channels of the high- and low-band receivers together were swept in 6 sec, dwelling at each channel for 25 msec. From one step to the next in the channel switching sequence, the antenna polarization sense was reversed, i.e., was changed from RH to LH or vice versa. Thus the time required for making a measurement of both the RH and LH intensity components at both senses of elliptical polarization at a given frequency was 12 sec. The data consists of successive averages of 4 pairs of RH and LH intensity measurements, each average spanning an interval of 48 sec. The format of these binary data files is as follows: file separation variable year, month, day information millisecond decimal value of the day Integer array (128,2) for 128 left and right channels (NOTE 128 channels for Hi-band; 70 channels for Lo-band) file separation variable There is an IDL program that reads these files into an IDL-format save set. See Information URL for a link to this file. The data are calibrated and are given in units of 'millibels' which is 1000 times the log of the received power. Zero millbels corresponds to approximately 1.4 x 10^-21 W m^-2 Hz^-1, however, this value is never seen in practice. The minimum values detected, which includes receiver internal and spacecraft generated noise, are about 2300 to 2400 millibels, or about 3.5 x 10^-19 W m^-2 Hz^-1; even higher values are seen at the very lowest frequencies. Note: The polarization indicated is the received polarization, not necessarily the emitted polarization. Correct interpretation of the received polarization depends on the antenna plane orientation relative to the radio source. A good description of this concept can be found in Leblanc Y., Aubier M. G., Ortega-Molina A., Lecacheux A., 1987, J.Geophys. Res. 92, 15125 and in Wang, L. and Carr, T.D., Recalibration of the Voyager PRA antenna for polarization sense measurement, Astron. Astrophys., 281, 945-954, 1994. and references therein.
| Role | Person | StartDate | StopDate | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | PrincipalInvestigator | spase://SMWG/Person/James.W.Warwick | |||
| 2. | MetadataContact | spase://SMWG/Person/Todd.A.King |
Information about the PRA instrument on the Voyager mission including operational mode descriptions.
NSSDC Master Catalog description of the Voyager 1 PRA Instrument
An IDL program that will read these Voyager PRA highband binary files and convert to IDL save sets.
Within this directory list are the binary data files for Voyager 1 and 2 PRA highband.
Within this directory list are the IDL save sets for Voyager 1 PRA highband during Jupiter encounter.
This collection is archived with NASA's Planetary Data System.
Year, month, and day of start in the format YYMMDD
Milliseconds of day
Electric field power spectral density, an average of 8 sweeps of the PRA highband receiver of 128 frequency channels each.