CORE-3017 (Continuous Observations of the Rotation of the Earth-3017) 2001 May 30 Notes prepared by Nancy Vandenberg and Cynthia Thomas,NVI/GSFC Schedule name: may01/c3017.skd on CDDISA Nominal Start: 18:30 U.T. on May 30 (day 150) first observation at 18:30 U.T. on 1044+719 for GC-KK-NY-WF first observation at 18:30 U.T. on 0552+398 for MA-WZ Nominal Stop: 18:30 U.T. on May 31 (day 151) last observation at 18:16 U.T. on 1334-127 for MA-WZ last observation at 18:17 U.T. on 0235+164 for NY-WF last observation at 18:19 U.T. on 0003-066 for GC-KK Observing Mode: 2F (with barrel roll, see details below) Correlator: Bonn 1 letter 2 letter Station Code Code # of tapes # of obs Occupation Code Fairbanks A Gc 1 (TT) 359 40476601 Kokee K Kk 2 (TT) 301 72983001 Matera I Ma 2 (TT) 356 72435701 Ny Alesund N Ny 1 (TT) 347 73313301 Westford E Wf 2 (TT) 332 72097301 Wettzell V Wz 1 (TT) 385 72247801 Purpose ======= The CORE-3 sessions marked the start of the regular CORE oberving program. These sessions will provide a bi-weekly 48-hour continuous data set from January through July (NEOS + CORE-3) and a weekly 48-hour continuous data set from July through December. The CORE-3 sessions will be recorded in a Mark 4 mode which requires that the participating stations have Mark 4 capability. Observing Mode ============== This is the first CORE series that uses a "Mark 4" style observing mode. The mode for CORE-3 uses fan-out and records on all 32 tracks to achieve a data rate of 128 Mb/s, more than twice that of the standard geodetic Mode C which is 56 Mb/s. CORE Mode "2F" (twice the standard mode C, fanned out) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Number of frequencies 14 (standard wide-band frequency sequence modified to avoid RFI at Matera) Number of channels 16 (14 USB + 2 LSB) Channel bandwidth 4.0 MHz Sample rate 8 Mb/s Bits per sample 1 Total data rate 128 Mb/s Data rate on tape 4 Mb/s/track Fan-out 1:2 Tape speed 80 ips Tracks per pass 32 Passes per tape 14 Barrel roll yes (*) Track frame format Mark4 and VLBA (*) The 16 recorded channels are comprised of the standard 14-channel USB frequency sequence plus the LSB channels of the first and last frequencies at X-band. The two outer X-band LSB channels give extra sensitivity. They also slightly narrow the peak of the delay resolution function, resulting in better group delay precision. *The stations with VLBA backends, Fairbanks and Kokee, will use barrel roll during this session and record in VLBA (non-data replacement) format. Stations with Mark 4 formatters cannot barrel roll. Schedule ======== This schedule was made by C. Thomas using sked. Schedule setup parameters: Early start 10 sec Minimum scan length 30 sec Maximum scan length 600 sec Minimum SNR 20 at X-band, margin of 5 15 at S-band, margin of 3 Automatic scheduling setup: optimize for uniform sky coverage at all stations, maximize the number of observations, minimize slewing time, minimize time between scans, consider the top 50% of ranked scans for selection, consider the last 1 hour of scans for sky coverage calculations, minimum 50 min between scans on the same source. The characteristics of the generated schedule are listed below. These will vary slightly for each schedule that is generated. The characteristics also will change when Matera and Ny Alesund are used in the network instead of Medicina and Onsala. Schedule characteristics: Average scan length 97 seconds Average SNR 46.2 at X-band 28.2 at S-band Number of observations 3108 observations Average scans per station 346 scans Parity ====== This schedule was made with a minimum scan time of less than the 55 seconds required for parity checks. As a result, some parity checks in the schedule may give bad results even though there is nothing wrong. The next release of the FS, 9.5, will correct this problem. In the meantime, please check when a parity check fails to see if the cause is a short scan. If the problem is presistent and occurs frequently at your station for a given schedule type, you may want to disable parity checks for specific experiments of that type. You can do this by creating empty "checkf80" and "checkr80" procedures (or "checkf135" and "checkr135" if you are using thick tape) in the EXPERIMENT procedure library for the effected experiment. If you do this, it is strongly recommend that you verify recorder performance before the experiment by recording some tape in both directions using the experiment set-up and check it with the appropriate parity check procedures. Flux Information ================ Program snranal compares the measured performance of a session with respect to the predicted. The program calculates an empirical flux density for each source. In order to account for changes in the flux catalog since the last update based on source modeling, the fluxes in the flux catalog for the sources in the current source catalog were adjused using the following databases: Date Session ==== ========= 00NOV14 NEOS-A394 00NOV28 NEOS-A396 00DEC12 NEOS-A398 01JAN08 IRIS-S158 01JAN16 NEOS-A403 01JAN23 NEOS-A404 01JAN30 NEOS-A405 01FEB06 NEOS-A406 01FEB13 NEOS-A407 Simulation Results ================== Simulated data from this schedule was used in a global solution to estimate the formal errors. The table below lists the formal errors for Earth orientation parameters. These results meet the simulation goals for the CORE-3 network. Also shown in the table are the maximum correlations between the Earth orientation parameters and other parameters. Simulation for experiment $01MAY30ZZ -------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | Maximum | Correlating | | EOP | Formal | Correlation | Parameter | | Parameters | Errors | | | |------------+----------------+-------------+----------------------| | | | | | | X-Wobble | 40.4 mas | 0.20 | KOKEE Z COMPONENT | | Y-Wobble | 33.4 mas | 0.14 | WETTZELL Z COMPONENT | | UT1-TAI | 1.6 musec | 0.15 | KOKEE Y COMPONENT | | UT1-Rate | 3.1 musec/d | 0.02 | KOKEE X COMPONENT | |------------|----------------|-------------|----------------------| Procedures ========== Please generate the procedures for this session using drudg. SKED Summary from file ./c3017.skd for experiment C3017 (all scans with at least one subnet station) SOURCE |0 6 12 18 | #SCANS #OBS #Obs/bl 0003-066I x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 18 32 6.4 0048-097I x x x x I 4 6 1.3 0059+581I x x x x x x x x x x I 10 101 7.2 0106+013I x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 14 45 6.8 0119+115I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 19 80 9.4 0119+041I x x x I 3 5 .7 0229+131I xx x x I 4 10 1.1 0235+164I x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x x xI 19 105 11.2 CTA26 I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 16 43 11.1 0454-234I x x x x x x x I 7 9 3.2 0458-020I x x x x xx x x x x x x x xI 14 39 10.3 0528+134I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 21 96 10.9 0552+398I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x x xI 22 194 16.4 0556+238I I 0 0 .0 0718+793Ix x x x x x x x x x x I 11 22 1.5 0727-115I x x x x x x xx x x x x x xI 14 20 5.4 0749+540I x x x x x x x x x x x x I 12 140 10.4 0804+499I x x x x x x x x x x I 10 120 9.5 0805+410I x x x x x x x x x x x I 11 95 7.9 0823+033I x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x x x xI 20 65 9.5 OJ287 I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 18 92 9.4 0919-260I xx x x x I 5 5 2.0 4C39.25 I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 19 172 14.7 OK290 I x x x x x x x x x x x I 11 21 2.0 0955+476I x x x x x x x x x x x I 11 120 9.7 1044+719Ix x x x x x x x x x x x I 12 138 9.5 1053+815I I 0 0 .0 1124-186I x x x x x x x x x x x I 11 17 5.7 1128+385I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 19 162 14.0 1219+044Ix x x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x I 17 51 7.2 1255-316I x x x I 3 3 1.4 1300+580Ix x x x x x I 6 85 6.4 1313-333I I 0 0 .0 1334-127I x x x x x x x x xx xx x x xI 15 21 5.6 1351-018I x x x x x x x x x x x x I 12 24 5.1 1357+769Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 21 315 21.0 1606+106I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 20 84 10.1 1622-253I x x x x x x x x I 8 8 2.9 NRAO512 I x x x x x x x x x x xI 11 82 6.7 1726+455I x x x x I 4 36 2.9 1739+522I x x x x x x x x xI 9 100 7.5 1741-038I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 18 39 9.3 1749+096I x x x x x x x x xx x xx x x x x x x x xI 21 89 11.0 1908-201I x x x x x x x x x xI 10 14 4.8 1921-293I x I 1 1 .4 1958-179I x x x x x x I 6 8 2.6 2121+053I x x x x x x x x x x x I 11 36 5.0 2128-123I x x x x x x x x x xI 10 14 4.5 2134+00 I x x x I 3 3 .5 2145+067I x x x x x x x x x x x xI 12 41 5.5 2234+282I x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 16 94 8.9 2255-282I x x x x x x I 6 6 2.5 Total scans, obs: 595 3108 Average number of obs. per baseline per source (normalized by up-time) = 6.9 Min = .0 Max = 54.1 (Baseline Ny-Wz on CTA26 ) RMS = 7.3 Total time: 1429 minutes ( 23.8 hours). Key: Gc=GILCREEK Kk=KOKEE Ma=MATERA Ny=NYALES20 Wf=WESTFORD Wz=WETTZELL Gc Kk Ma Ny Wf Wz Avg % obs. time: 30 45 42 34 46 36 39 % cal. time: 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 % slew time: 24 15 23 19 16 12 18 % idle time: 41 35 29 42 33 46 38 # of tapes : .9 1.2 1.2 .9 1.2 1.0 total # scans: 359 301 356 347 332 385 346 # scans/hour : 15 12 14 14 13 16 14.4 Avg scan (sec): 71 129 103 84 119 81 97 # OF OBSERVATIONS BY BASELINE | Gc Kk Ma Ny Wf Wz StnTotal -------------------------------------- Gc|359 278 144 238 228 174 1062 Kk| 301 70 160 186 96 790 Ma| 356 249 199 354 1016 Ny| 347 231 279 1157 Wf| 332 222 1066 Wz| 385 1125 Number of 2-station scans: 176 Number of 3-station scans: 155 Number of 4-station scans: 112 Number of 5-station scans: 97 Number of 6-station scans: 55 Total # of scans, observations: 595 3108 Average baseline components for all observations Average XY = 4882. Average XZ = 4297. Average YZ = 3170. Average length = 5249.