LOFAR Single Station as a Training Tool for Students

The LOFAR (Low-Frequency Array) radio telescope is relatively new instrument, arranged as an interferometer, composed currently of 51 stations located in many parts of Europe [1]. Each station consist of up to 3264 omnidirectional dipole antennas (in full configuration) and is able to observe radio waves from the sky in range of 10–240 MHz (see Figure 1). Signals from individual dipoles, sampled with 200 MHz clock, after digitalizing process which takes place in the field generates up to 10 Gbits/s of raw data, which is served through a dedicated network for analyzer systems.