CORE-3029 (Continuous Observations of the Rotation of the Earth-3029) 2001 September 12 Notes prepared by Nancy Vandenberg and Cynthia Thomas,NVI/GSFC Schedule name: sep01/c3029.skd on CDDISA Nominal Start: 18:30 U.T. on September 12 (day 255) first observation at 18:30 U.T. on 1908-201 for HH-WZ first observation at 18:30 U.T. on 1128+385 for GC-NY-WF Nominal Stop: 18:30 U.T. on September 13 (day 256) last observation at 18:00 U.T. on 0119+115 for GC last observation at 18:03 U.T. on 1606+106 for HH last observation at 18:14 U.T. on 1044+719 for NY-WF-WZ Observing Mode: 2F (with barrel roll, see details below) Correlator: Haystack 1 letter 2 letter Station Code Code # of tapes # of obs Occupation Code Fairbanks A Gc 1 (TT) 397 40476601 HartRAO J HH 1 (TT) 139 72326201 Ny Alesund N NY 2 (TT) 426 73313301 Westford E Wf 2 (TT) 382 72097301 Wettzell V Wz 2 (TT) 432 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 station with VLBA backends, Fairbanks, 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 Median SNR 35.0 at X-band 25.0 at S-band Number of observations 2116 observations Average scans per station 355 scans Station Information =================== Tigo-Concepcion was scheduled to participate in this session. Unfortunately, Tigo-Conception will not be ready to observe until October. 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 ==== ========= 01MAY02 CORE-3015 01MAY14 CORE-1012 01MAY16 CORE-3016 01MAY21 CORE-C101 01MAY30 CORE-3017 01JUN13 CORE-3018 01JUN20 CORE-C102 01JUN27 CORE-3019 01JUL11 CORE-3020 01JUL25 CORE-3022 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 $01SEP12ZZ -------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | Maximum | Correlating | | EOP | Formal | Correlation | Parameter | | Parameters | Errors | | | |------------+----------------+-------------+----------------------| | | | | | | X-Wobble | 58.2 muas | -0.10 | WETTZELL Z COMPONENT | | Y-Wobble | 46.7 muas | 0.11 | WETTZELL Z COMPONENT | | UT1-TAI | 2.1 musec | 0.14 | WETTZELL X COMPONENT | | UT1-Rate | 4.6 musec/d | 0.02 | WETTZELL Y COMPONENT | |------------|----------------|-------------|----------------------| Procedures ========== Please generate the procedures for this session using drudg. SKED Summary from file ./c3029.skd for experiment C3029 (all scans with at least one subnet station) SOURCE |0 6 12 18 | #SCANS #OBS #Obs/bl 0003-066I x x x x x x x xI 8 10 3.0 0048-097I x x xx x x I 6 12 3.2 0059+581Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 21 126 18.0 0106+013I xx x x xx x x xx xI 11 21 4.8 0119+115I x x x x x x x x x xx I 11 30 5.0 0119+041I x x I 2 2 .4 0229+131I x x x x x I 5 7 1.1 0235+164Ix x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x x x I 20 75 12.4 CTA26 I x x x x x x x x x x xI 11 18 3.7 0454-234I x xx x x x x I 7 11 6.1 0458-020Ix x xx x x I 6 8 2.8 0528+134Ix x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x x xx x I 20 47 7.2 0552+398I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 23 124 17.2 0556+238I x x x x I 4 8 1.0 0718+793I x x x x x x x x I 8 48 6.9 0727-115I x x x x x xx x x x I 10 16 4.3 0749+540Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 18 108 15.4 0804+499I x x x x x I 5 30 4.4 0805+410I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 18 78 8.1 0823+033I x x x x x x x x x xx x x I 13 17 3.9 OJ287 I x x x x x xx x x x xx x xx x x x x x x x x xI 24 92 14.8 0919-260I x I 1 1 .5 4C39.25 Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 19 103 14.2 OK290 I x x x x x x x xx x x x x xI 14 22 2.7 0955+476I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 17 96 14.3 1034-293I x x x x I 4 4 2.0 1044+719I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 20 117 16.7 1053+815Ix x x x I 4 24 3.4 1124-186I x x x x x x I 6 6 3.1 1128+385I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x x xI 21 93 11.4 1219+044I I 0 0 .0 1255-316I x x x I 3 3 1.5 1300+580Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 21 126 18.0 1313-333I I 0 0 .0 1334-127I x x x x x x x x x I 9 9 2.6 1351-018I x x x x x x xI 7 9 4.1 1357+769I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 20 120 17.1 1606+106I x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x xI 17 53 9.9 1622-253I x x x x x I 5 5 2.6 NRAO512 Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 20 90 9.7 1726+455I x x x x x x I 6 30 4.5 1739+522I x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xI 17 99 14.2 1741-038Ix x x x x x x x x x I 10 10 2.4 1749+096Ix x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x I 17 59 11.4 1908-201I x x x xx I 5 5 3.2 1921-293I x x x I 3 3 1.5 1958-179I x x x x x x I 6 12 6.6 2121+053I x x x x x x x x x x x x I 12 35 7.6 2128-123I x x xI 3 3 .9 2134+00 I I 0 0 .0 2145+067I x x x x x x x xI 8 20 4.3 2234+282I x x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x I 19 69 8.9 2255-282I x x I 2 2 1.0 Total scans, obs: 567 2116 Average number of obs. per baseline per source (normalized by up-time) = 6.8 Min = .0 Max = 23.6 (Baseline Gc-Ny on OJ287 ) RMS = 7.3 Total time: 1426 minutes ( 23.8 hours). Key: Gc=GILCREEK Hh=HARTRAO Ny=NYALES20 Wf=WESTFORD Wz=WETTZELL Gc Hh Ny Wf Wz Avg % obs. time: 37 22 39 44 46 38 % cal. time: 4 1 4 4 5 4 % slew time: 24 27 23 18 16 22 % idle time: 33 48 31 32 31 35 # of tapes : 1.0 .6 1.1 1.2 1.3 total # scans: 397 139 426 382 432 355 # scans/hour : 16 5 17 16 18 14.8 Avg scan (sec): 80 137 80 100 92 97 # OF OBSERVATIONS BY BASELINE | Gc Hh Ny Wf Wz StnTotal ---------------------------------- Gc|397 14 347 325 266 952 Hh| 139 63 45 135 257 Ny| 426 301 343 1054 Wf| 382 277 948 Wz| 432 1021 Number of 2-station scans: 178 Number of 3-station scans: 148 Number of 4-station scans: 229 Number of 5-station scans: 12 Total # of scans, observations: 567 2116 Average baseline components for all observations Average XY = 4653. Average XZ = 4173. Average YZ = 3867. Average length = 5427.