Session Notes for RD1201 Prepared by D. Behrend, NVI, Inc./GSFC =========================================================== PURPOSE AND GENERAL NOTES =========================================================== With the start of the IVS observing program in 2002 (based on the WG2 Report), sources were only scheduled when they had an angular distance to the Sun of more than 15 deg. Based on data from RDV and VCS experiments, Sebastien Lambert (Paris Observatory) expects that the inclusion of sources closer to the Sun can improve the determination of the post-Newtonian parameter gamma by 15% (even with a modest number of observations below 15 deg per session; for instance, 1-2 observations per session). The purpose of RD1201 is to provide observational data to support this claim and, if successful, to eventually change the general IVS scheduling to include one or two observations per session close to the Sun. This is the third session to support observations close to the Sun. The RD1201 schedule uses the R1 frequency setup. It was generated using SNRs of 20 at X-band and 15 at S-band for all stations except TIGO which was scheduled with values of 18 and 12. All stations have been fully scheduled; TIGO was give extra weight. The schedule uses a selection of 120 sources from the good geodetic source list plus two extra sources with a closer angular distance to the Sun. There are three sources with an angular distance less than 15 deg to the Sun: 1920-211, 1936-155, 1958-179, and 2008-159. The limit for the angular distance to the Sun was set to 4 deg and a regular R1 scheduling was done. This resulted in 24 observational scans with a distance to the Sun ranging from 4.8 deg to 14.9 deg. These scans are observed by subnets of the following seven stations: Hh, Kk, On, Tc, Ts, Wf, and Wz. There is no scan close to the Sun for Ny. Scans with observations close to the Sun Source Start DURATIONS name yyddd-hhmmss Hh Kk Ny On Tc Ts Wf Wz ------------------------------------------------------- 2008-159 12024-175719| 281 281 | 4.8 deg from sun 2008-159 12024-195242| 253 253 | 4.9 deg from sun 1958-179 12024-201108| 70 70 | 6.0 deg from sun 2008-159 12024-202724| 251 251 | 4.9 deg from sun 2008-159 12024-210820| 250 250 | 4.9 deg from sun 1920-211 12024-212419| 156 156 | 14.7 deg from sun 2008-159 12024-215225| 249 249 | 4.9 deg from sun 1920-211 12024-220109| 156 156 | 14.7 deg from sun 2008-159 12024-223004| 249 249 120 | 4.9 deg from sun 1958-179 12024-231103| 40 40 | 6.1 deg from sun 1936-155 12024-231406| 40 40 | 11.8 deg from sun 1936-155 12025-003050| 40 40 | 11.8 deg from sun 1920-211 12025-014045| 40 40 | 14.9 deg from sun 1958-179 12025-014318| 40 40 | 6.2 deg from sun 1936-155 12025-014600| 40 40 | 11.9 deg from sun 1958-179 12025-030841| 40 40 | 6.3 deg from sun 1936-155 12025-035725| 40 40 | 11.9 deg from sun 2008-159 12025-063018| 40 40 | 5.1 deg from sun 1958-179 12025-063940| 137 137 | 6.4 deg from sun 1958-179 12025-075739| 90 90| 6.5 deg from sun 1958-179 12025-093421| 73 73| 6.5 deg from sun 2008-159 12025-113855| 121 121 101| 5.2 deg from sun 2008-159 12025-131914| 126 126 | 5.3 deg from sun 2008-159 12025-150218| 72 77 77| 5.3 deg from sun ------------------------------------------------------- Sources with observations close to the Sun (indicated by an 'x') 4 chars/hour SOURCE | 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 | #SCANS #OBS #Obs/bl ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1920-211| x o o o o o o x x | 3 3 1.5 1936-155| x x x x | 4 4 1.2 1958-179| x x x x x x x | 7 7 2.2 2008-159| x x x x x x x x x x | 10 16 5.3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total scans, obs: 24 30 Kokee and Wettzell will observe INT I12024 during the time from 1815 UT to 1945 UT. =========================================================== Experiment: RD1201 Description R&D-01 2012 Scheduler: NASA Correlator: HAYS Start: 2012-024-17:30:00 End: 2012-025-17:30:00 Current yyyyddd: 2012024 (2012.07) ( 15951 MJD, TUES 24JAN.) Greenwich sidereal time: 1:43: 0.00 (17:30: 0 UT) Sun's RA and DEC: 20h 25.8m -19d 13.4 =========================================================== First observations Observation listing from file ./rd1201.skd for experiment RD1201 Source Start DURATIONS name yyddd-hhmmss Hh Kk Ny On Tc Ts Wf Wz 0332-403 12024-173000| 136 136 | 1803+784 12024-173000| 40 40 40 40 40 40| ...... End of listing. =========================================================== Last observations Observation listing from file ./rd1201.skd for experiment RD1201 Source Start DURATIONS name yyddd-hhmmss Kk Ma Ny On Sh Ts Wf Wz ...... 1741-038 12025-172039| 343 343 271 | ...... 0529+483 12025-172727| 87 100 40 100 62| 0727-115 12025-172902| 40 40 | End of listing. =========================================================== SKED Summary from file ./rd1201.skd for experiment RD1201 (all scans with at least one subnet station) Average number of obs. per baseline per source(normalized by up-time) = 4.0 Min = 0.0 Max = 46.5 (Baseline Ts-Wf on 0003-066) RMS = 6.8 Total time: 1440 minutes ( 24.0 hours). Key: Hh=HARTRAO Kk=KOKEE Ny=NYALES20 On=ONSALA60 Tc=TIGO Ts=TSUKUB32 Wf=WESTFORD Wz=WETTZELL Hh Kk Ny On Tc Ts Wf Wz Avg % obs. time: 33 53 57 54 55 40 58 48 50 % cal. time: 3 4 5 4 3 6 4 5 4 % slew time: 46 19 20 23 6 22 17 12 21 % idle time: 17 22 17 17 35 31 20 34 25 total # scans: 229 376 414 362 250 509 363 418 365 # scans/hour : 10 16 17 15 10 21 15 17 15 Avg scan (sec): 125 122 120 130 191 68 139 99 123 # data tracks: 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 # Mk5 tracks: 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 Total GBytes: 1033 1647 1782 1694 1717 1243 1810 1495 1553 Total GB(M5): 919 1464 1584 1506 1526 1105 1609 1328 1380 # of tapes : 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 tape change times (hhmm): Total number of tapes: 8.0 Total GBytes (M5) recorded: 11042.5 # OF OBSERVATIONS BY BASELINE | Hh Kk Ny On Tc Ts Wf Wz StnTotal -------------------------------------------------- Hh| 0 48 84 91 73 52 103 451 Kk| 138 72 111 236 151 87 795 Ny| 266 21 271 196 280 1220 On| 28 181 167 290 1088 Tc| 22 122 28 423 Ts| 131 228 1142 Wf| 179 998 Wz| 1195 Number of 2-station scans: 461 Number of 3-station scans: 219 Number of 4-station scans: 148 Number of 5-station scans: 90 Number of 6-station scans: 50 Number of 7-station scans: 0 Number of 8-station scans: 0 Total # of scans, observations: 968 3656 =========================================================== Recording mode Name Code GEOSX SX Recording mode setup for: HARTRAO KOKEE NYALES20 ONSALA60 TIGOCONC TSUKUB32 WESTFORD WETTZELL Mode Tot.Rate Tot.BandW #chan #bits Barrel Mk341:2 256.000 Mbits 128.000 MHz 14 1 NONE Chan.BW #Subpasses Tracks(*fan) Tot.tracks Speed 8.00 MHz 1 16(*2) 32 0.00 X-band spanned bw= 720.0 MHz rms spanned bw= 280.4 MHz S-band spanned bw= 140.0 MHz rms spanned bw= 50.9 MHz Effective number of channels recorded per sub-pass X S Total 10.000 6.000 16.000 =========================================================== Tape types ID Station Tape length Density Passes Hh HARTRAO Mark5B Kk KOKEE Mark5A Ny NYALES20 Mark5A On ONSALA60 Mark5A Tc TIGOCONC Mark5B Ts TSUKUB32 K5 Wf WESTFORD Mark5A Wz WETTZELL Mark5A =========================================================== SNR Targets Minimum SNR by baseline for multi-baseline scans X-band (margin 0) S-band (margin 0) Hh Kk Ny On Tc Ts Wf Hh Kk Ny On Tc Ts Wf Kk 20 Kk 15 Ny 20 20 Ny 15 15 On 20 20 20 On 15 15 15 Tc 18 18 18 18 Tc 12 12 12 12 Ts 20 20 20 20 18 Ts 15 15 15 15 12 Wf 20 20 20 20 18 20 Wf 15 15 15 15 12 15 Wz 20 20 20 20 18 20 20 Wz 15 15 15 15 12 15 15 ===========================================================