  The sources of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays, which can have energies
up to 10^20 eV, remain a mystery. UHE neutrinos may provide important clues to
understanding the nature of cosmic-ray sources. ARIANNA aims to detect UHE
neutrinos via radio (Askaryan) emission from particle showers when a neutrino
interacts with ice, which is an efficient method for neutrinos with energies
between 10^16 eV and 10^20 eV. The ARIANNA radio detectors are located in
Antarctic ice just beneath the surface. Neutrino observation requires that
radio pulses propagate to the antennas at the surface with minimum distortion
by the ice and firn medium. Using the residual hole from the South Pole Ice
Core Project, radio pulses were emitted from a transmitter located up to 1.7 km
below the snow surface. By measuring these signals with an ARIANNA surface
station, the angular and polarization reconstruction abilities are quantified,
which are required to measure the direction of the neutrino. After deconvolving
the raw signals for the detector response and attenuation from propagation
through the ice, the signal pulses show no significant distortion and agree
with a reference measurement of the emitter made in an anechoic chamber.
Furthermore, the signal pulses reveal no significant birefringence for our
tested geometry of mostly vertical ice propagation. The origin of the
transmitted radio pulse was measured with an angular resolution of 0.37 degrees
indicating that the neutrino direction can be determined with good precision if
the polarization of the radio-pulse can be well determined. In the present
study we obtained a resolution of the polarization vector of 2.7 degrees.
Neither measurement show a significant offset relative to expectation.
