Contents

• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction
  • Motivation
  • Source selection
  • Outline of thesis
• Southern Hemisphere VLBI
  • Fundamentals of aperture synthesis
  • Observing with SHEVE
    • Observations of the sample
    • Correlation
    • Fringe-fitting
    • External calibration
    • Imaging and internal calibration
• Pictor A, a powerful, low red shift radio galaxy
  • Introduction
  • Observations and data reductions
  • Discussion
• Compact radio sources and -ray emission
  • Introduction
  • Indicators of relativistic beaming
  • Observations and data reductions
  • The individual sources
    • PKS 0208-512
    • PKS 0438-436
    • PKS 0521-365
    • PKS 0537-441
    • PKS 0637-752
    • PKS 1514-241
    • PKS 1921-293
  • Discussion
    • Apparent speeds
    • Misalignment angles
    • Brightness temperatures
  • Conclusions
• Sub-parsec-scale structure and evolution in Centaurus A
  • Introduction
  • Near-simultaneous 4.8 and 8.4 GHz SHEVE observations
  • SHEVE 8.4 GHz monitoring observations
    • Model-fitting technique
    • Structure and evolution from model-fitting
    • Effects of u-v coverage variation
  • Combined SHEVE+VLBA observations
    • The sub-pc-scale counterjet
  • Conclusions
• GRO J1655-40 - A superluminal radio source in our Galaxy
  • Introduction
  • Observations and data reductions
  • Interpretation
  • Discussion
• The unusual radio galaxy, PKS 1718-649
  • Introduction
  • VLBI observations
  • Low-resolution radio continuum observations
  • The nature of PKS 1718-649
    • A core-jet radio source?
    • A GHz Peaked-Spectrum type object?
  • Conclusions
• The jet/cloud interaction in PKS 2152-699
  • Introduction
  • Observations and Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
• Concluding remarks
  • The Southern Hemisphere component
  • The Northern Hemisphere component
  • VLBI properties of the ``Whole-Sky'' sample
  • Other results
  • Future work
  • Refereed Publications
  • Conference Proceedings
• References
• About this document ...