A narrow band e-VLBI system is in development as a part of the LFVN (Low Frequency VLBI Network) activity taking advantages of the relatively small portion of band necessary in a certain class of radioastronomy observations. Data are acquired using a simple dedicate terminal and recorded on disk. The maximum recorded signal band is 48 MHz wide, flexibly scalable up to few kilohertz and then with the concrete possibility to transfer the full amount or portion of it in near real time to a correlation point, using the standard Internet connection, when narrow band acquisitions are appropriate. Radar, spectral lines, low frequency, spacecraft navigation observations could benefit from this inexpensive solution in those stations where large antennas and sensitive receivers are available, and where is still missing the possibility to be supplied with standard VLBI terminals, giving then yet the possibility to perform radio astronomy research. The terminal is at present placed in Noto (Italy), Bear Lakes (Russia), Urumqi (China) and a few other stations, Simeiz (Crimea), Seshan (China), Evpatoria (Ukraine), will get a terminal in the first months of 2004. A mixed software/dsp correlator is also in development in Noto, based on a shared computing strategy, allowing to improve auto- and cross-correlation performance adding a number of PCs equipped with a dedicated DSP board to improve the correlation capability. During the VLBR03.1 radar session in July 2003, the VLBI data from Noto and Bear Lakes were successfully translated to Noto and processed for detecting the spectrum of the echo signals. This work was supported by INTAS 01-0669, INTAS IA-01-02, RFBR 02-02-17568 and RFBR-02-02-39023 grants.
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