Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England, while the telescopes will be installed in Australia and South Africa. Suitable sites for the SKA telescope must be in unpopulated areas with guaranteed very low levels of man-made radio interference. Four sites were initially proposed in South Africa, Australia, Argentina and China. After considerable site evaluation surveys, Argentina and China were dropped and the other two sites were shortlisted (with New Zealand joining the Australian bid, and 8 other African countries joining the South African bid): Australia The core site is located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) at Mileura Station near Boolardy in the state of Western Australia, north-east of Geraldton South Africa The core site is located at the Meerkat National Park, at an elevation of about 1000 metres, in the Karoo area of the arid Northern Cape Province. There are also distant stations in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. Precursors, pathfinders and design studies Many groups are working globally to develop the technology and techniques required for the SKA. Their contributions to the international SKA project are classified as either: Precursors, Pathfinders or Design Studies. Precursor facility: A telescope on one of the two SKA candidate sites, carrying out SKA-related activity. Pathfinder: A telescope or programme carrying out SKA-related technology, science and operations activity. Design Study: A study of one or more major sub-systems of the SKA design, including the construction of prototypes Precursor facilities Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) The Australian SKA Pathfinder, or ASKAP, is an A$100 million project which built a telescope array of thirty-six twelve-metre dishes. It employs advanced, innovative technologies such as phased array feeds to give a wide field of view (30 square degrees). ASKAP was built by CSIRO at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site, located near Boolardy in the mid-west region of Western Australia. All 36 antennas and their technical systems were officially opened in October 2012. MeerKAT MeerKAT is a South African project consisting of an array of sixty-four 13.5-metre diameter dishes as a world class science instrument, and was also built to help develop technology for the SKA. KAT-7, a seven-dish engineering and science testbed instrument for MeerKAT, near Carnarvon in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa was commissioned in 2012 and was up and running by May 2018 when all sixty-four 13.5-metre diameter (44.3 feet) dish antennae were completed, with verification tests then underway to ensure