Drilling a Phase Shifter
Green Bank Machinist Roger Dickenson carefully guides the drill to place small holes into a gold electroplated phase shifter for a receiver. Almost every one of the components that went into the Very Large Array’s upgraded receivers could not be commercially purchased. This is true also for some bands of ALMA and all Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) receivers. Instead, the components were developed, measured and manufactured by the combined talents of the Central Development Lab, of which this machine shop is a critical part.
Credit: B. Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF
