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ALMA Memo #370
A Comparison of Availability of Major Radio Interferometers

G. H. Tan
May 2001

This memo gives an overview of historically achieved availability performance at major radio observatories around the world. The instruments analysed, including the Very Large Array, Very Long Baseline Array and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, have similar attributes as the proposed ALMA radio telescope. The goal of this analysis is to obtain a proper overview on instrument availability and use this as a basis for determining a suitable objective for ALMA. Due to the intrinsic nature of radio interferometers, these systems show a graceful degradation in performance, which makes it difficult to assess their availability. For this reason a separate section in this memo is dedicated to define a practical method, based on experience at the VLA and VLBA, to calculate availability for a radio interferometer.

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Last modified: May 14, 2001

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