cross-talk

cross-talk

The undesirable exchange of signals between closely spaced electrical elements. The antennas of a radio interferometer can exhibit cross-talk when they are close together. It may also occur if they are observing at low elevations, when one antenna may ‘see’ the back of another. Cross-coupling of noise produces an additional correlated output from the interferometer that must be accounted for. Some sorts of cross-talk can be removed by phase-switching the local oscillators supplied to different antennas at different frequencies (see phase-switching interferometer).