Towards electromagnetic characterization of MeerKAT Telescope

As part of South Africa's Square Kilometre Array (SKA) programme, the Karoo Array Telescopes (KAT) KAT-7 and MeerKAT have been developed. Lightning protection and radio frequency interference (RFI) mitigation form essential parts in the design of the KAT systems. Electromagnetic (EM) characterization of single dish structures has been done using computational electromagnetic (CEM) and reduced scale modeling. This paper describes progress on EM and RFI characterization of the MeerKAT design, with specific focus on lightning-induced RFI, lightning surge protection, and earthing.