During 2010–11, the Medicina 32-m dish hosted the seven-feed 18–26.5 GHz receiver built for the Sardinia Radio Telescope, with the goal to perform its commissioning. This opportunity was exploited to carry out a pilot survey at 20 GHz over the area for δ > +72.◦3. This paper describes all the phases of the observations, as they were performed using new hardware and software facilities. The map-making and source extraction procedures are illustrated. A customized data reduction tool was used during the follow-up phase, which produced a list of 73 confirmed sources down to a flux density of 115 mJy. The resulting catalogue, presented here, is complete above 200 mJy. Source counts are in agreement with those provided by the Australia Telescope 20 GHz (AT20G) survey. This pilot activity paves the way for a larger project, the K-band Northern Wide Survey (KNoWS), whose final aim is to survey the whole Northern hemisphere down to a flux limit of 50 mJy (5σ).

S. Righini et al.

Peer Reviewed