rdv63 (Astrometric/Geodetic VLBA-62) 2007 June 26 17:30 Day 177 Notes prepared by Leonid Petrov, NVI/GSFC Schedule name: rdv63.skd Pointing files: rdv63crd.br, rdv63crd.fd, rdv63crd.hn, rdv63crd.kp, rdv63crd.la, rdv63crd.mk, rdv63crd.nl, rdv63crd.ov, rdv63crd.pt, rdv63crd.sc ftp://vlbiobs@aspen.nrao.edu/home/aspen6/astronomy/mar07/rdv63 Summary file for correlator: rdv63.sksum on aspen PCFS file: ftp://vlbigeo@cddisa.gsfc.nasa.gov/vlbigeo/mar07/rdv32.skd http://lupus.gsfc.nasa.gov/sess/2007/sesshtml/rdv63.html This experiment uses the 10 VLBA and 6 IVS stations. SUBNET Br-Fd-Hh-Hn-Kb-Kk-Kp-La-Mk-Nl-Ny-Ov-Pt-Sc-Sv-Wz Key: Br=BR-VLBA Fd=FD-VLBA Hn=HN-VLBA Hh=HARTRAO Kb=KASHIM34 Kk=KOKEE Kp=KP-VLBA La=LA-VLBA Mk=MK-VLBA Nl=NL-VLBA Ny=NYALES20 Ov=OV-VLBA Pt=PIETOWN Sc=SC-VLBA Sv=SVETLOE Wz=WETTZELL Br Fd Hh Hn Kb Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny Ov Pt Sc Sv Wz Avg % obs. time: 47 48 68 50 43 39 44 47 36 50 70 41 46 49 42 56 48 % cal. time: 5 5 2 4 3 4 5 5 4 5 2 5 5 4 3 2 4 % slew time: 26 26 25 18 26 18 26 26 24 23 6 25 26 21 29 4 22 % idle time: 21 21 4 27 27 38 24 21 35 21 21 28 22 25 25 38 25 total # scans: 413 422 185 357 282 346 424 435 375 413 193 399 434 349 257 192 342 # scans/hour : 17 18 8 15 12 14 18 18 16 17 8 17 18 15 11 8 14 Avg scan (sec): 99 97 320 121 131 98 90 93 82 105 315 89 92 121 141 250 139 Total GBytes: 958 968 1165 968 817 605 917 965 758 1001 1199 853 955 948 791 863 921 Total GB(M5): 852 861 1036 861 726 538 815 857 674 889 1066 759 849 842 703 767 818 # 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 tape change times (hhmm): Total number of tapes: 1.1 Total GBytes (M5) recorded: 13095.3 # OF OBSERVATIONS BY BASELINE | Br Fd Hh Hn Kb Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny Ov Pt Sc Sv Wz StnTotal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Br| 329 10 193 83 221 329 347 232 283 30 318 350 191 35 16 2967 Fd| 12 208 47 195 377 411 220 307 27 320 411 214 28 16 3122 Hh| 54 74 0 7 12 0 26 147 2 10 45 170 167 736 Hn| 28 91 183 216 107 301 73 154 206 287 96 62 2259 Kb| 153 66 51 156 42 88 83 53 14 111 78 1127 Kk| 226 195 318 138 18 250 203 80 16 7 2111 Kp| 376 256 271 20 361 392 185 20 10 3079 La| 222 323 26 325 416 223 29 17 3189 Mk| 159 13 279 232 93 13 4 2304 Nl| 45 233 305 300 57 33 2823 Ny| 18 24 50 168 147 894 Ov| 338 152 16 6 2855 Pt| 211 26 14 3191 Sc| 75 50 2170 Sv| 172 1032 Wz| 799 Number of 2-station scans: 29 Number of 3-station scans: 224 Number of 4-station scans: 112 Number of 5-station scans: 125 Number of 6-station scans: 66 Number of 7-station scans: 79 Number of 8-station scans: 70 Number of 9-station scans: 73 Number of 10-station scans: 54 Number of 11-station scans: 62 Number of 12-station scans: 17 Number of 13-station scans: 3 Number of 14-station scans: 3 Number of 15-station scans: 0 Number of 16-station scans: 0 Total # of scans, observations: 917 17329 First observations: name yyddd-hhmmss Br Fd Hh Hn Kb Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny Ov Pt Sc Ts Wz Zc 0718+793 10 SX PREOB 07177173000 300 MIDOB 0 POSTOB BWDWHWO-KWMWNWPWQWRWSWUWEWTW 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 1334-127 10 SX PREOB 07177173000 300 MIDOB 0 POSTOB J-W- 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 300 300 1357+769 10 SX PREOB 07177173644 110 MIDOB 0 POSTOB BWDWHWO-KWMWNWQWR-SWUWTW 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 52 63 51 51 110 63 61 53 110 60 61 63 1124-186 10 SX PREOB 07177173723 40 MIDOB 0 POSTOB J-E-W- 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 40 40 40 1803+784 10 SX PREOB 07177173927 40 MIDOB 0 POSTOB BWDWHWO-KWMWNWPWQWRWSWUWTW 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 Last observations: name yyddd-hhmmss Br Fd Hh Hn Kb Kk Kp La Mk Nl Ny Ov Pt Sc Ts Wz Zc 0312+100 10 SX PREOB 07178171648 480 MIDOB 0 POSTOB B-D-H-M-N-P-Q-S-U-EC 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 480 480 480 480 480 480 480 480 480 480 1348+308 10 SX PREOB 07178171708 228 MIDOB 0 POSTOB J-R-T-W- 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000001 YYNN 228 228 107 187 1334-127 10 SX PREOB 07178172354 366 MIDOB 0 POSTOB J-T- 1F000000 1F000000 YYNN 364 364 0212+735 10 SX PREOB 07178172646 300 MIDOB 0 POSTOB BCDCHCO-KWMCNCPWQCRWSCUCECWW 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000001 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000000 1F000001 YYNN 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 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 intensive. - The fluxes use our most recent models. Purpose ======= This is the third of six bi-monthly coordinated astrometric/geodetic experiments in 2007 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 ~400 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, 45 sources are in the Post-April2007 geodetic list. They are in the declination band [+10,+40]. Previous VLBA observations showed that these are very compact, summetric sources. New observations will provide contemporary maps. There were 9 requested sources: 0211+171 $ 02 14 44.9 +17 22 49.3 2000 0.0 Preston 0312+100 $ 03 15 21.1 +10 12 45.1 2000 0.0 Preston 0828-222 $ 08 31 09.15 -22 28 26.953 2000 0.0 Wrong apriori in rdv62 1054+004 $ 10 57 15.7 +00 12 03.6 2000 0.0 Preston 1218+339 $ 12 20 33.8 +33 43 12.3 2000 0.0 Preston 2029+024 $ 20 31 47.25 +02 39 37.284 2000 0.0 KQ 2201+044 $ 22 04 17.4 +04 40 04.5 2000 0.0 Kovalev 2205+743 $ 22 05 47.2 +74 36 21.7 2000 0.0 Kovalev 2318-195 $ 23 20 52.2 -19 19 31.3 2000 0.0 Kovalev The sources marked Preston are bright sources from the Preston et al. (1985) catalogue previously not observed in RDVs'. Source 0828-222 was correlated in rdv62 with apriori coordinates which were 4' offand therefore, has to be re-observed. Three sources are requested by Yu. Y. Kovalev, and source 2029+024 was successfully detected at K-band in the K/Q VLBA survey. Monitored sources: 30 sources were selected which had not been recently observed. Other sources. The remaining sources where chosen from the geodetic catalog to complement the sky distribution. 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 Hobart, Hartrao and Tigo were 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 8 channels. 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: jun07 directory on vlbeer: jun07 directory on aspen: /home/aspen6/astronomy/jun07/rdv63 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.