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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2016
The primary goal of radio source surveys is to generate flux-limited samples. Sources selected at very low frequencies are dominated by unbeamed emission and give the only unbiased view of the parent populations used by “unification” models to account for the diversity of sources seen at high frequencies. Low-frequency surveys favor sources with exceptionally steep spectra. They include radio galaxies at high redshifts, radio halos of nearby galaxies, relic radio sources, diffuse cluster emission, pulsars that may be missed by traditional pulse searches, and a new class of unidentified compact sources. Flux densities from low-frequency surveys extend the spectra of known source populations to frequencies at which free-free and synchrotron absorption become significant and constrain basic source parameters. Finally, telescope fields-of-view scale ∝ λ2, so gridded surveys can be more efficient than directed observations of individual targets. This review covers recent and proposed low-frequency source surveys and their astronomical uses.