The LOFAR system have been designed in the Netherlands and the first elements were located there.

Until today, 52 LOFAR stations have been created and installed with a total number of over 100,000 single dipole antennas and receiving systems adapted to record waves from one to several meters in length.

The network consists of 38 stations in the Netherlands (24 are the so-called Core Area, 6 of which are located in the area called Superterp) and 13 in Europe – three of these stations were installed in Poland. There are two more stations in Latvia and Italy in the construction or planning phase.

Antennas within stations are installed in two types:
• High Band Antennas (HBA) designed to receive waves in the range of 110 – 250 MHz (3 – 1 meters), which are collected in panels (tiles) of 16 pairs of dipoles. Each field contains 48 or 96 tiles.
• Low Band Antennas (LBA) for receiving waves in the range of 10 – 90 MHz (10 – 4 meters). Each station contains 48 or 96 antennas.

Each group of dipoles generates a signal reaching the specialized analyzers at a frequency of 200 MHz. The processed signal in digital form leaves the observation station with a dedicated 10 Gbps connection.