HERA RF and calibration system design

The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) is a radio telescope dedicated to observing large scale structure during and prior to the epoch of reionization. It is a second generation instrument currently under development and concurrently being deployed in the Karoo, South Africa. This paper describes the design considerations of the new 50 Ω RF system being developed for the telescope, taking into account a number of important design factors, such as matching, noise switching and RF-over-Fibre (RFoF) technology.