Notes made for September 2008 session for P617

Observing

1. Start the correlator (DFB3):
   • login to pkccc3 as corr/*
   • > sdfb3
2. Start TCS
   • login to a Sun (sagitta) as observer/

   •         > atcsver 
             > tcs 
     

   • to get latest version of TCS, and start it
   • select Digital Filter Bank (time-binning)
   • select Expert mode
   • configuration file is p617
   • cycletime = 4s

See whiteboard for passwords.

Looking at scans

To examine data:

1. Copy from the correlator computer:

   > scp corr@pkccc3:/data2/SDFB3_2/2008-09-29_hhmm-P617.rpf .
   

2. Load into the pol format:

   > pload 2008-09-29_hhmm-P617.rpf
   > gcopy 2008-09-29_hhmm-P617 2008-09-29_0753-P617
   

3. Look at the data (uncalibrated). This example shows scan number 3.

   > showscan 2008-09-29_hhmm-P617 -s 3
   

showscan asks for:

• a plot device: the first plot is not useful so give carriage return
• a channel number, then a plot device
  • Graphics device/type (? to see list, default /NULL): /xs (for a screen plot)
  • Graphics device/type (? to see list, default /NULL): filename.ps/ps (for hard copy)
  • > lwp filename.ps from the unix prompt.

Producing sdfits files

1. Load data: pload <filename>
2. Provide unit bandpass table
   Syntax : bpass <filename> -u
3. Convert to Single Dish FITS . Use calscans to do this. It will output the part of the spectrum specified in the file <filename>/freqtab.dat, which contains a list of frequency bands to be formed. calscans assumes all bands have the same width and so expects a set of evenly spaced frequencies. Frequency separations should be no less than the channel separation; if more, the output bands are the averages of several input channels. The -s switch gives the output as RR,LL,RL,LR (instead of IQUV). The -t switch prevents any translation from telescope to sky corrdinates (parallactic angle tracking).
   Syntax : calscans <input file> <output filename> -s RL -t

   > pload 2008-09-29_hhmm-P617.rpf
   > bpass 2008-09-29_hhmm-P617 -u
   > calscans 2008-09-29_hhmm-P617 output.sdf -s RL -t