  The Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) on-board the ESA Planck satellite carries
eleven radiometer subsystems, called Radiometer Chain Assemblies (RCAs), each
composed of a pair of pseudo-correlation receivers. We describe the on-ground
calibration campaign performed to qualify the flight model RCAs and to measure
their pre-launch performances. Each RCA was calibrated in a dedicated
flight-like cryogenic environment with the radiometer front-end cooled to 20K
and the back-end at 300K, and with an external input load cooled to 4K. A
matched load simulating a blackbody at different temperatures was placed in
front of the sky horn to derive basic radiometer properties such as noise
temperature, gain, and noise performance, e.g. 1/f noise. The spectral response
of each detector was measured as was their susceptibility to thermal variation.
All eleven LFI RCAs were calibrated. Instrumental parameters measured in these
tests, such as noise temperature, bandwidth, radiometer isolation, and
linearity, provide essential inputs to the Planck-LFI data analysis.
