Within the project BALTICS ("Building on Advanced Lofar Technology for Innovation, Collaboration and Sustainability", project No. 692257 - Baltics) two Ventspils University of Applied Sciences Ventspils International Radio Astronomy Centre engineers from 14 to 25 May participated in the two-week traineeship organised by the project partner the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON.

The main goal of the traineeship was to gain practical experience in working with LOFAR antenna field equipment, which will be necessary for the maintenance of the international LOFAR radio telescope Irbene station. One of the main tasks of the internship was the repair and testing of LOFAR High Band Antenna Arrays (HBA) at the ASTRON Institute, thus gaining valuable experience in maintaining this type of antenna in real field conditions, which was also strengthened during the maintenance trip to the Dutch central stations around the city Exloo.         

At the same time, employees participated in the development and testing of the High Band Antenna Portable Controller (HBA-PC) developed by ASTRON, thus not only strengthening the knowledge of HBA antenna technology, but also making a valuable contribution to improving the maintenance efficiency of the LOFAR system. Also, the employees of VUAS ERI VIRAC had the opportunity to gain an insight into the maintenance process of the Westerbork radio telescope receiving equipment, which will be useful for performing similar tasks in the radio telescope complex in Irbene.     

More about the project BALTICS here.