The bootstrap implementation of the EKH algorithm is a simple and intuitive
way of understanding what actually occurs but with the obvious limitation that
it is exact only when the amount of the frequency switch is a whole number of
channels. The generalization of the bootstrap to non-whole
numbers of channels follows trivially after expressing its actions in terms
of a convolution in the manner of the original discussion of EKH. As a
function of channel number the convolving function
for a switch of s channels is
where , and the
div operation signifies integer division discarding any remainder. If
the convolution is implemented with an FFT, the spectrum should be well
padded with zeroes at either end.
Figure 6 (click here) shows convolution functions for the cases of 34 and
channels. The delta functions of the whole number case at top have a
clearer ringing behaviour at bottom; the sinc function is used to
interpolate band-limited, critically-sampled functions and the action of
convolution with a single off-center sinc is simply to translate by a
non-integer number of channels. The phase of the comb in Fig. 6 (click here) has been
chosen so that the recovered signal will appear in the same channels as
are occupied by the signal phase of the switching cycle. If both the
signal and reference phases are symmetrically offset and the recovered
signal should appear between them, the term -ms in Eq. (4) can be
replaced by -(m+1/2)s.
Note that the simple existence of a fractional channel switching interval does
not by itself mandate the use of the bootstrap. The ensuing sacrifice in noise
level (a factor of at least if the simple shift and subtract technique can be
used) causes larger statistical uncertainties in the estimated line
properties, quite possibly exceeding the error introduced by use of a slightly
inaccurate switching interval. When features are well-resolved, whole-channel
shifts introduce at most only small errors. The convolution implementation
of the bootstrap runs much more more slowly than the whole-channel
algorithm expressed in Eq. (3).