X-/Ka-band dichroic plate noise temperature reduction

The X-/Ka-band (8.4 GHz/32.0 GHz) dichroic plate installed as DSS 13 contributes an estimated 3 K to the system noise temperature at 32.0 GHz. Approximately 1 percent of the Ka-band incident field is reflected by the plate into the 300-K environment of the DSS-13 pedestal room. A low-cost, easily implemented method of reducing the noise temperature is presented. Using a curved reflector, the reflected field can be re-focused into an 80-K cold load, reducing the noise temperature contribution of the dichroic plate by about 2 K.