RFI and Calibration
Why RFI handling and calibration matter, and how far PSRUI currently goes in each area.
What RFI is
RFI is non-astronomical radio interference present in the observation.
On charts, it may appear as:
- persistently bright or dark frequency channels
- abnormal sub-integrations
- local corruption of the profile shape
PSRUI's direct v1 entry point is channel-level zapping from the waterfall view.
What calibration is solving
Polarimetric calibration is about correcting how the instrument response affects the measured polarization quantities.
If calibration is wrong or missing, Stokes-related plots may not reflect the underlying physical signal correctly.
Why they should not be conflated
- RFI handling is mostly about removing contaminated data
- calibration is about correcting instrument response
Both can change what you see in the charts, but they serve different purposes.
PSRUI today: RFI handling is limited to channel zapping, and calibration is limited to
pacpreviews using existing databases, paths, or solution files.
If you need automatic RFI heuristics, sub-integration zapping, or a calibration-database builder, you still need the CLI workflow or a future PSRUI release.