The initial observations were made with two telescopes; one based at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) in California, United States, and the other near the Meerkat National Park in Klerefontein in the Karoo desert, South Africa.

The secondary mirrors on both telescopes were supported by cones of radio-transparent foam to minimize the contamination from ground pick up and to avoid scattering the incoming polarized radiation.

The survey has mapped not only the intensity but also the orientation of the incoming electromagnetic waves (polarization) at every point on the sky with an angular resolution of 0.73 degrees.

This has been the first survey to map the sky at a frequency of 5 GHz—low enough to be synchrotron radiation dominated but high enough to be relatively unaffected by Faraday rotation.

This radiation is highly polarized and a major foreground distorting the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) signal.