# Single-dish calibration in a nutshell

The output of the (telescope + front-end + back-end) system is a signal proportional to the sum of the atmospheric emission and the astronomical signal attenuated by the atmospheric absorption. Various ON-OFF schemes are used to subtract the atmospheric emission, leaving us with signal proportional to the source brightness. The purpose of the calibration is to disentangle the different effects to be able to convert the signal counts into antenna temperatures.

Subsections

- Description of the received signal
- Description of the calibration scheme
  - Skydips and determination of the forward efficiency
  - Load calibration and determination of the zenith opacity
  - Data calibration