Field System Status and Plans Ed Himwich, John Gipson, and Ed Himwich, John Gipson, and Jonathan Quick

Current Status FS Some relatively small bugs known Tape labels Ground pick-up table in RXG files S2 Help files not selected properly Station help files not picked properly disk2file=;in2net=;disk_record= Time tag display information errors in data_check, scan_check …

FS (late Summer 2005) Minor bugs fixed Mark IV formatter bit slip detection (1 Ms/s) Improved GNPLT version by Andrea Orlati Nutation offset support in VEX parser Mark5 support for “continuous” tape schedules RDV geodetic schedules VLBA correlation of FS recorded Mark5 disks Field labels designed for disk packs Automated ftp transfer fs_check.tcl Other small items generated by this meeting

FS (early fall 2005) S2 DAS support in DRUDG Eliminate use of some mk5=… commands for normal operations Phase-cal extraction support for Mark IV decoders? CHEKR monitoring of Mark5 Update Mark 5 “Remaining Capacity” display while recording

Automated disk2file ftp transfer Two options Daemon running on Mark5 computer detects new file and manages transfer Detects problems, can manage multiple files May be implemented by message sent after disk2file=abort FS initiates transfer after disk2file=abort Use a SNAP script to start a process on the Mark5

Operating System Issues FS Linux 6 Distribution Based on Debian “Sarge” Clean Install or Upgrade from FS Linux 5 (woody) 3 rd Quarter 2005 (Jon) Firewalls Inexpensive, <US$100 Should be used with older, no longer supported distributions Good idea for current distribution

Diagnostic Software Being developed to automate station check-out for CONT05, but should be useful for other stations Most tests require a Mark IV decoder Small amount of customization for each station General scheme for each test: Station set-ups equipment in mode to test Run test SNAP procedure Analyze/plot using Perl/Pgperl scripts Can easily be adapted for Mark 5B Expected to greatly improved sensitivity

Diagnostics Tests Already implemented: Baseband Bandpass shapes Baseband LSB Image Rejection Phase-cal power Phase-cal spurious signals Adding: Baseband USB Image Rejection Sampler statistics Overnight stability tests Short term stability tests Examples

Longer term development items I Documentation Update Improve prediction of disk pack change times Pointing software clean-up Eliminate redundancies in pointing configuration information by introducing a source coordinate database file and reorganizing point.prc and ctlpo.ctl (aquir control file). Documentation clean-up to reflect new procedures and utilities Improved Tsys Most items completed Post processing program to generate AIPS (ANTAB) format TSYS files from Cormac Reynolds Periodic firing of calibration diode with flagging needed Convert from fort77/f2c to g77 Will allow use of source level debugger Must maintain compatibiltiy with f2c for older distributions

Longer term development items II TNX (“Thanks”) command expansion This command currently provides a syntax to eliminate the display of errors that the operator knows can’t be fixed and should be ignored Will be extended to allow different error messages with the same number and two letter code to be distinguished Will not allow an error that has not occurred to be masked off. FSVUE Integrated X client (Tcl/Tk) FS Operator Interface for FS Second iteration now, uses client-server model Allows multiple “Operator Input/Log Display” consoles for remote operation Initially add-on, eventually main interface Includes log display (scrolling doesn’t jump on new input) and operator input windows Buttons to allow you to examine logs, help, and run various utilities: monit, logpl, msg, and others.

Longer term development items III Band changes Band configuration procedures added to set-up by DRUDG. The DRUDG control file will be expanded to include a table of station defined procedures that can be used to set-up local station equipment for a band. These procedures can also be used manually by the operator as needed. Note that use of the existing SAVE_FILE command can be used in these procedures and INITI to recover the receiver set-up between FS terminations and restarts. Add a command LOCONFIG. This will be used after the LO= commands in the IFD set-up procedure. This can be used as trigger to start configuring the Los, if doing so in each individual LO= command might cause problems. By default, LOCONFIG will be a NO-OP, but it can be defined locally and do whatever is necessary for LO configuration in one step. CALON and CALOFF SNAP variables. This intended to deal with stations that have different cal control methods for different bands. The idea is that variables will be introduced into SNAP, specifically two: CALON and CALOFF. These can be defined by the band set-up procedures described above and used as $CALON and $CALOFF in procedures when the noise diode needs to be controlled.

Additional Future Items I IF patching automation for Mark IV racks EVN has hardware design, but not implemented in field yet. We will need one relatively simple SNAP command to support it: A special version of PATCH and a way to control which version is used. Mark IV decoder support This is beyond the phase-cal monitoring mentioned above, mainly a few SNAP commands to control the decoder manually. Most of the effort here is actually divining what is needed and developing documentation

Additional Future Items II Phase-cal control monitoring from VEX schedules Mark IV decoder support already planned Mark 5B support expected when device available AIPS format file generated from post-processing Support for VLBA digital switch board