The University of Mississippi operates a Geophysical Survey Systems Incorporated SIR2000 system with 300 MHz bistatic and 400 MHz (used for this project) antennas (Figure 2). GSSI radar systems are regularly used in archaeological research in North America. The SIR2000 system includes a control unit built from a laptop computer with 2.1 GB of storage and a battery (Geophysical Survey Systems Inc. 1999:5). The components can be worn on a harness, mounted on a cart, or separated using a long cord. Vertical profiles are displayed in real time on the screen. An integrated survey wheel, which is used to determine the distance along the transect line, attaches to the antenna sled.
Data were collected using N-S oriented transects spaced either .5 meter (portions of Whittington) or 1 meter apart (portions of Whittington and all of Ailhaud St. Anne). Samples were collected at a 512 per scan and 32 scans were collected per meter. A standard time window of 60 ns was used. A radiometric resolution of 8 bits was used.
For a portion of the Ailhaud St. Anne survey (north of the N40 line), a Geophysical Survey Systems Incorporated SIR3000 with a 400 MHz bistatic antenna and a cart was used. Setup parameters were used to mimic the SIR2000 data so that it could be compared and ultimately composited to form one data set.