rdv68 (Astrometric/Geodetic VLBA-68) 2008 April 02 17:30 Day 093 Notes prepared by Leonid Petrov, NVI/GSFC ------------------------------------------------------------------ RDV68 Change Notes (Normal Notes Follow) Scheduled to Run 02-Apr-2008 John Gipson NVI,Inc/NASA GFSFC This is an update to schedule RDV68. This update effects only non-VLBA stations. Changes: The schedule has been updated to not record continuously at stations outside the VLBA (i.e. that use the FS), but to use adaptive recording instead. This is the only change that was made. All stations outside the VLBA should get the new schedule file and re-DRUDG. Please note that due to how DRUDG treats adaptive tape motion, there are extraneous setup procedures in the schedule when the disk is recording between the few scan where the recording is continuous. These extraneous setup procedures are benign. However, if one occurs very near the end of a disk pack, the bank may be change prematurely or there may be an error message in the set-up procedure. No corrective action should be needed. If recording stops because of a premature bank change, it should start again with the next disk_record=on, which will be at most a few scans away. The extraneous setups will be eliminated in the next DRUDG release. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Schedule name: rdv68.skd Pointing files: rdv68crd.br, rdv68crd.fd, rdv68crd.hn, rdv68crd.kp, rdv68crd.la, rdv68crd.mk, rdv68crd.nl, rdv68crd.ov, rdv68crd.pt, rdv68crd.sc ftp://vlbiobs@aspen.nrao.edu/home/aspen6/astronomy/apr08/rdv68 Summary file for correlator: rdv68.sksum on aspen PCFS file: ftp://vlbigeo@cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov/vlbigeo/rdv68/rdv68.skd http://lupus.gsfc.nasa.gov/sess/2008/sesshtml/rdv68.html This experiment uses the 10 VLBA and 7 IVS stations. SUBNET Br-Fd-Hh-Hn-Kk-Kp-La-Mk-Nl-Ny-On-Ov-Pt-Sc-Wf-Wz-Zc Key: Br=BR-VLBA Fd=FD-VLBA Hh=HARTRAO Hn=HN-VLBA Kk=KOKEE Kp=KP-VLBA La=LA-VLBA Mk=MK-VLBA Nl=NL-VLBA Ny=NYALES20 On=ONSALA60 Ov=OV-VLBA Pt=PIETOWN Sc=SC-VLBA Wf=WESTFORD Wz=WETTZELL Zc=ZELENCHK Total time: 1440 minutes ( 24.0 hours). Total time: 1440 minutes ( 24.0 hours). Key: Br=BR-VLBA Fd=FD-VLBA Hh=HARTRAO Hn=HN-VLBA Kk=KOKEE Kp=KP-VLBA La=LA-VLBA Mk=MK-VLBA Nl=NL-VLBA Ny=NYALES20 On=ONSALA60 Ov=OV-VLBA Pt=PIETOWN Sc=SC-VLBA Wf=WESTFORD Wz=WETTZELL Zc=ZELENCHK Br Fd Hh Hn Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny On Ov Pt Sc Wf Wz Zc Avg % obs. time: 70 68 66 68 58 69 68 70 67 76 85 66 68 66 67 79 62 69 % cal. time: 4 4 2 3 2 4 4 3 4 2 2 4 4 3 3 2 3 3 % slew time: 23 25 30 22 11 24 25 18 25 10 10 24 25 23 15 6 32 21 % idle time: 3 3 1 5 28 2 2 8 3 10 2 5 2 6 14 12 2 7 total # scans: 310 333 173 295 198 323 339 241 328 192 188 322 339 296 254 202 226 268 # scans/hour : 13 14 7 12 8 13 14 10 14 8 8 13 14 12 11 8 9 11 Avg scan (sec): 194 176 328 199 251 185 173 251 177 343 392 177 173 193 229 338 237 235 # data tracks: 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 # Mk5 tracks: 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 Total GBytes: 748 751 975 723 408 730 749 580 763 813 949 699 747 752 704 810 754 744 Total GB(M5): 665 668 867 643 363 649 666 515 678 722 843 621 664 669 625 720 670 662 # of tapes : 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 tape change times (hhmm): Total number of tapes: 1.2 Total GBytes (M5) recorded: 11247.4 # OF OBSERVATIONS BY BASELINE | Br Fd Hh Hn Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny On Ov Pt Sc Wf Wz Zc StnTotal ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Br| 259 16 196 125 256 270 171 260 69 23 252 271 183 147 25 43 2566 Fd| 19 207 118 308 318 169 277 61 26 260 322 225 164 26 42 2801 Hh| 50 0 12 20 0 31 107 159 3 19 50 57 162 168 873 Hn| 61 188 216 102 242 97 59 164 210 245 224 55 80 2396 Kk| 129 120 182 103 41 7 170 122 68 59 11 16 1332 Kp| 297 181 260 54 18 274 303 207 145 22 37 2691 La| 169 290 66 27 260 330 229 176 31 44 2863 Mk| 155 33 5 221 172 110 67 6 13 1756 Nl| 76 39 236 286 240 190 38 58 2781 Ny| 126 46 67 83 99 117 128 1270 On| 8 25 59 69 164 167 981 Ov| 267 175 120 11 28 2495 Pt| 225 170 28 43 2860 Sc| 211 60 79 2449 Wf| 60 73 2031 Wz| 186 1002 Zc| 1205 Number of 2-station scans: 7 Number of 3-station scans: 110 Number of 4-station scans: 90 Number of 5-station scans: 74 Number of 6-station scans: 34 Number of 7-station scans: 40 Number of 8-station scans: 51 Number of 9-station scans: 71 Number of 10-station scans: 76 Number of 11-station scans: 26 Number of 12-station scans: 30 Number of 13-station scans: 28 Number of 14-station scans: 11 Number of 15-station scans: 2 Number of 16-station scans: 0 Number of 17-station scans: 0 Total # of scans, observations: 650 17176 First four scans: name yyddd-hhmmss Br Fd Hh Hn Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny On 0727-115 08093-173000| 300 300 300 300| 1803+784 08093-173000| 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 | 1053+815 08093-173548| 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 | 0458-020 08093-173735| 300 300 300 300| Ov Pt Sc Wf Wz Zc 0727-115 08093-173000| 300 300| 1803+784 08093-173000| 300 300 300 300 | 1053+815 08093-173548| 300 300 300 300 | 0458-020 08093-173735| 300 300| Last nine scans name yyddd-hhmmss Br Fd Hh Hn Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny On 2356+385 08094-171030| 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 0458-020 08094-171047| 300 300 CTA26 08094-171739| 300 300 0059+581 08094-171813| 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 0151+474 08094-172347| 182 182 0642+449 08094-172545| 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 0556+238 08094-172659| 49 81 58 0602+673 08094-172722| 70 73 72 0823+033 08094-172855| 49 49 Ov Pt Sc Wf Wz Zc 2356+385 08094-171030| 300 300 300 300 | 0458-020 08094-171047| 300 300| CTA26 08094-171739| 300 | 0059+581 08094-171813| 300 300 300 300 300| 0151+474 08094-172347| 134 | 0642+449 08094-172545| 40 40 40 40 40| 0556+238 08094-172659| 64 81 | 0602+673 08094-172722| 73 70 | 0823+033 08094-172855| 40 40| Special Notes for this session: - IMPORTANT. In this RDV ALL stations will record on Mark5. The session will be correlated in 3-passes. - IMPORTANT: The synch time for the VLBA correlator using Mark5 is 25 seconds. Because of this, stations recording with Mark5 disks will start taking data 25 seconds prior to the normal scan time. They will continue to take data between scans if the there is the gap is less than 25 seconds. - All stations participate in two initial long (5-min) scans and two final 5-min scans. - Wettzell and Kokee are absent from 18:20 to 19:40 because of the UT1 intensive VLBI experiment. - The fluxes use our most recent models. Purpose ======= This is the first of six bi-monthly coordinated astrometric/geodetic experiments in 2008 that use the full 10-station VLBA plus up to 10 geodetic stations capable of recording VLBA modes. This year's series is a continuation of the highly successful RDV series begun in 1997. These experiments are being coordinated by the geodetic VLBI programs of three agencies: USNO, NASA, and NRAO. The experiments have been designed so that the same data set may be used by each agency for its particular goals. USNO and Bordeaux Observatory will perform repeated imaging and correction for source structure. These sources will establish a set of core reference sources with known structure and precisely known positions. These data will provide the basis for evaluating the long term stability of the radio reference frame and the ultimate accuracy of wide angle astrometric measurements of extragalactic radio sources using VLBI. NASA will analyze this data to determine a high accuracy terrestrial reference frame. The data will incorporate the VLBA stations into the VLBI reference frame through the inclusion of other geodetic stations for which we have long histories. The data will also produce the most accurate Earth rotation results ever produced. We will use these data to make accurate absolute measurements of UT1. NRAO will use these sessions to provide a service to users who require high quality positions for small numbers of sources. While the quality of these results will be high, the observing and data reduction overhead required will be minimal because such sources can be incorporated into a session of the regular geodetic observations, instead of requiring special observations. Sources for this series of experiments will be selected using the proposed approach. For each experiment we will select a set of 70-80 sources out of the pool of 394 Northern Hemisphere ICRF sources. About 40-50 of these will remain the same from experiment to experiment and will be chosen to optimize the goals of the three groups. Schedule ======== This is a new schedule generated by Leonid Petrov using sked. SOURCE SELECTION There are a total of 105 sources in this session. Among them, 30 sources are in the astrometric list and 12 sources were requested, predominately at low declinations. 0633-26A 0633-26A 06 35 20.9090 -26 20 39.871 2000.0 0.0 Kovalev 0633-26B 0633-26B 06 35 19.4170 -26 20 55.806 2000.0 0.0 Kovalev 0804-153 0804-153 08 07 05.411 -15 31 25.31 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 0806-153 0806-153 08 09 07.616 -15 32 47.38 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1047+147 1047+147 10 49 46.3275 +14 29 38.574 2000.0 0.0 Wrobel 1045+155 1045+155 10 48 01.4800 +15 14 49.000 2000.0 0.0 Wrobel 1147-192 1147-192 11 50 31.313 -19 30 49.27 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1156-214 1156-214 11 59 21.192 -21 42 46.00 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1223-188 1223-188 12 26 35.460 -19 04 38.58 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1333-152 1333-152 13 36 34.179 -15 29 48.10 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1600-294 1600-294 16 03 16.615 -29 33 55.52 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1614-255 1614-255 16 17 20.630 -25 37 25.03 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1713+218 1713+218 17 15 21.2557 +21 45 31.698 2000.0 0.0 Petrov 1905-297 1905-297 19 08 29.482 -29 42 16.83 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1925-206 1925-206 19 28 09.278 -20 35 44.29 2000.0 0.0 Phillips 1921+144 1921+144 19 23 34.71 +14 29 53.7 2000.0 0.0 Honma 1528-509 1528-509 15 31 43.614 -51 08 59.47 2000.0 0.0 Deller 8 sources were requested as potential calibrators, two previously observed sources were requested since they are a potinetial wide graviatational lense pair, 1713+218 will be re-observed since it was previosly observed only once in a NEOS-A session in 1997, other sources are the brightest flat spectrum sources in the AT20G list. SCHEDULING ALGORITHMS This schedule also uses the "SRCEVN SQRT" mode. In the absense of any constraints, Sked will preferentially observe strong sources that have high visibility. This mode attempts to smooth out the number of observations per source. In this schedule observations involving Hartrao was given preference in scheduling. Recording Mode and Frequencies: same as previous experiments ============================================================ The data will be recorded using the following setup: 8 channels 1:4 fan-out 16 MHz sample rate 1-bit sampling This recording mode is designated 128-8-1. The correlator speed-up factor is 2. The frequency sequence covers 500 MHz in 4 channels at each band. This span fits in one VLBA receiver passband but it uses both the high and low parts of the geodetic receivers. Because only 8 channels are available when observing with the VLBA stations, a wider spanned bandwidth is not advisable. These tables list the setup for the VLBA stations, the geodetic stations with VLBA back ends, and the geodetic stations with Mark IV back ends. These are the SAME frequencies used in all the standard RDV sessions. Geodetic stations: please read the special procedures in the next section! VLBA Fairbanks Kokee Chan Sky Tracks LO IF BBC | LO IF BBC #| LO IF BBC # 1 X 8405.99 2, 4, 6, 8 7900 B 505.99| 7600.1 A 805.89 3|7600 A 805.99 3 2 X 8475.99 10,12,14,16 7900 B 575.99| 7600.1 A 875.89 4|7600 A 875.99 4 3 X 8790.99 18,20,22,24 7900 B 890.99| 8080.0 C 710.99 5|8100 C 690.99 5 4 X 8895.99 26,28,30,32 7900 B 995.99| 8080.0 C 815.99 6|8100 C 795.99 6 5 S 2232.99 3, 5, 7, 9 2900 A 667.01| 1540.1 B 692.89 9|1500 B 732.99 9 6 S 2262.99 11,13,15,17 2900 A 637.01| 1540.1 B 722.89 10|1500 B 762.99 10 7 S 2352.99 19,21,23,25 2900 A 547.01| 1540.1 B 812.89 13|1500 B 852.99 13 8 S 2372.99 27,29,31,33 2900 A 527.01| 1540.1 B 832.89 14|1500 B 872.99 14 VLBA | Tsukuba Chan Sky Tracks LO IF BBC | LO IF BBC # 1 X 8405.99 2, 4, 6, 8 7900 B 505.99| 7680 A 725.99 3 2 X 8475.99 10,12,14,16 7900 B 575.99| 7680 A 795.99 4 3 X 8790.99 18,20,22,24 7900 B 890.99| 8080 A 710.99 5 4 X 8895.99 26,28,30,32 7900 B 995.99| 8080 A 815.99 6 5 S 2232.99 3, 5, 7, 9 2900 A 667.01| 1600 B 632.99 9 6 S 2262.99 11,13,15,17 2900 A 637.01| 1600 B 662.99 10 7 S 2352.99 19,21,23,25 2900 A 547.01| 1600 B 752.99 13 8 S 2372.99 27,29,31,33 2900 A 527.01| 1600 B 772.99 14 Medicina, Wettzell, Matera, GGAO, TIGO VLBA | Westford, NOTO, HartRAO, Onsala Chan Sky Tracks LO IF BBC | LO IF VC VC# Patch 1 X 8405.99 2, 4, 6, 8 7900 B 505.99| 8080.0 1 325.99 3 H 2 X 8475.99 10,12,14,16 7900 B 575.99| 8080.0 1 395.99 4 H 3 X 8790.99 18,20,22,24 7900 B 890.99| 8580.1 3 210.89 5 L 4 X 8895.99 26,28,30,32 7900 B 995.99| 8580.1 3 315.89 6 H 5 S 2232.99 3, 5, 7, 9 2900 A 667.01| 2020.0 2 212.99 9 H 6 S 2262.99 11,13,15,17 2900 A 637.01| 2020.0 2 242.99 10 H 7 S 2352.99 19,21,23,25 2900 A 547.01| 2020.0 2 332.99 13 H 8 S 2372.99 27,29,31,33 2900 A 527.01| 2020.0 2 352.99 14 H Special procedures for non-VLBA stations ======================================== SEE THE NOTE AT THE START ABOUT MARK5 recording. Special procedures for Medicina, Westford, Onsala, Wettzell, Tsukuba, Matera, GGAO, TIGO ================================================================== These stations have Mark IV formatters. If you are using Field System 9.x, use the procedures and snap files generated by DRUDG. The IF3 command in the procedure IFDSX assumes that VC3 will be patched to High. Please verify that the switches for your IF3 module are wired this way, and if they are not please edit the IF3 command to change the switches. If you have questions about the wiring, please contact Brian Corey at Haystack. Special procedures for Kokee ================================================== These stations have VLBA back ends. Use the procedures generated by DRUDG. BBCs 3,4,5,6 are used at X-band with IFs A and C. BBCs 9,10,13,14 are used at S-band with IF B. CHECKLIST for non-VLBA stations =============================== Please follow the checklist below to ensure you have done all the necessary steps for this experiment: 1. Make .prc file with DRUDG and check them out, or use the procedures from last session. Check out parity check procedures. 2. Make the .snp file with DRUDG. 3. Set up your system to monitor the clocks with the "gps-fmout" or "fmout-gps" commands. If you have questions about this, please contact Ed Himwich as soon as possible. 4. Send a "ready" message an hour or so before the experiment to the ivs-ops mail list. Copy analysts@nrao.edu on your ready message. 5. Send a "start" message soon after you have started recording. Copy analysts@nrao.edu on the message. 6. At the end of the experiment, send a "finish" message summarizing how the experiment was conducted. Copy analysts@nrao.edu on your message. 8. Transfer your log files to your normal log file data center. The directories for three possible servers are listed below: directory on cddisa: jan08 directory on vlbeer: jan08 directory on aspen: /home/aspen6/astronomy/apr08/rdv68 NOTE: If you don't normally use aspen, you should not put your log file on that server. The VLBA correlator knows where to find your log files. Correlation =========== This experiment will be correlated at the VLBA Correlator. Disks should be shipped to Socorro as soon after the experiment as practical.