5. Observing Checklist

5.1 Observing Checklist UPSTAIRS

• Check with operation staff whether daily hardware changes are required for the project (rare, but, e.g., some recabling could be necessary because of a different setup of a concurrent project).
• Rack #8: To make sure your required receiver is turned on, go upstairs to Rack #8 (closest to the stairs). There you will see a black panel as shown in fig:rack8 with the labelling REMOTE SWITCH CONTROL PANEL. Depending on the reciever being used, the following table lists which silver toggle switches should be ON/OFF:

  | | 20CM | Other | 1 | Receiver Pan A/B | ON | ON | 2 | Receiver Pan C | | ON | 3 | | | | 4 | | | | 5 | GP-IB EXTENDER | OFF | f <= 6GHz: OFF; else ON | 6 | | | | 7 | | | |

  

  Figure 5.1: Rack #8: HP_2 (top) and HP_1 (middle) synthesizers and the

  REMOTE SWITCH CONTROL PANEL (black, bottom).

5.2 Observing Checklist DOWNSTAIRS

• Ask the previous observers to log out of all machines (PAVO, PISCES, LAGAVULIN and JURA). Perseus is a pulsar-specific machine.
• Exit all versions of TCS (on pavo/pisces), PKCOR (pkccc1), SDFB3/PDFB3 (pkccc3) and/or SDFB4/PDFB4 (pkccc4).
• Turn off LNAs of receivers installed in focus cabin for which you do not require (for MULTI, 1050cm, 13MM):
  • Use PKMC on Bourbon’s rightmost display (display #3)
  • Click on "show" of the needed receiver(s)
  • Click on LNA buttons to turn them RED
• Turn on your receiver LNAs (for MULTI, 1050cm, 13MM):
  • Use PKMC on Bourbon’s right-most monitor
  • Click on "show" of the needed receivers
  • Click on LNA buttons to turn them GREEN
• Move receiver on axis
  • Select your receiver on OPERFCC (bourbon’s left-hand side monitor)
  • Press "place selected receiver on axis".
• SWITCH OFF FOCUS-CABIN CAMERA MONITOR (Generates RFI!!!)
• Depending on your required backend(s), you start pkcor on pkccc1, sdfb3/pdfb3 on pkccc3 or sdfb4/psrdfb4 on pkccc4.
  • Open a corr@pkcccN xterm on bourbon using the DFB3/DFB4/PKCOR icon on central monitor, user "corr", password (ask Ettore/John/Stacy)
  • Start up the GUI: i.e., sdfb3
  • Check the GUI window title has "Archive: RPFITS"
  • IF THE CORRELATOR DOESN’T START there could be some not-killed process about the correlator itself still on. In that case:
    • Quit the GUI
    • Enter corkill and (if using DFB3/4) then bcckill on the corr@pkcccN xterm.
    • Restart the appropriate GUI.
  • If the above does not work for DFB3/4, reboot the bcc boards:
    • From the pkcccN xterm, login to the two bcc’s (l-bcc11 and l-bcc06) as follows:
    • Use ssh root@l-bcc06 (password required)
    • Enter reboot
    • Similarly for l-bcc11.
• Set LO attenuations:
  • On a sun station (user observer, passwd required)
  • Enter lorun ~/losetup/pXXX.cmd ("pXXX" is your project code)
  • The script name could be different: ask operation staff for confirmation
  • To check if it attenuators are correctly set:
    • On logui (bourbon’s left-most monitor; screen #0):
    • Press REFRESH in OPTIONS (to refresh to the actual values)
    • Check C12att, C30att, C40att (for 64/128 MHz BW) and C50att for 256 MHz BW) are set to the desired levels (see pXXX.cmd file).
• Set SWITCH MATRIX:

  This is usually managed by TCS, no user action required. Some non-standard configurations require a special setup.

  • if so directed by the support staff you will need to run an smrun script:
  • on a sun station (user "observer" (passwd required))
  • smrun ~/smsetup/pXXX.cmd ("pXXX" is your project code)
  • the script name could be different: ask operation staff for confirmation;
  • to check whether the Matrix is correctly set:
    • on PKMC (on bourbon’s Display #3)
    • click "show" of the "Switch Matrix";
    • A1: your BW is connected to DFB3 A1 (DFB4 A1)
    • B1: your BW is connected to DFB3 B1 (DFB4 B1)
• If is to be recorded using DFB3/4 => Set the Calibration signal (). On PKMC (on bourbon’s right-hand side monitor):
  • Click "show" of the "Cal Control Unit"
  • Turn off all cal signals
  • Turn on cal signal "row of your receiver => column BEC-Sync0"
• If Frequency switching is to be used => Set the Calibration signal (freq sw). On PKMC (on bourbon, right-hand side monitor):
  • Open the "Cal Control Unit"
  • Turn on cal signal "row Conv Rack Freq SW => column MBCor FreqSW"
  • Turn off all undesired cal signals
• Start TCS to manage the observations (under user "observer"):
  • Check if tcs is running by a former observer and, if any, quit it
  • type tcs
  • For DFB3/4 spectral–line/continuum observing select:
    • DIGITAL F’BANK (time binning)
    • EXPERT MODE
    • SELECT PROJECT (if present, via bottom menu)
  • For Multibeam Correlator spectral–line/continuum observing select:
    • MULTIBEAM CORRELATOR
    • EXPERT MODE
    • SELECT PROJECT (if present, via bottom menu)
  • It is recommended to set the observation parameters by schedule, although it can be done by TCS’ GUI. For schedule syntax, set the desired parameter in the tcs GUI and read the the result in the log panel.
  • Focus: Enable
  • Antenna: Enable If ANTENNA doesn’t enable, likely it means that either another TCS is still running with ANTENNA ENABLE (which takes the antenna control) or other software is controlling the antenna (like that used for PSR obs with the Analog Filter Banks).
  • Sched agend: CTRL
  • Sched file: OWN and select the schedule file
• SCHEDULE files: Usually located in /p/observer/PXXX/Sched (or /nfs/online/local/tcs/sched/pXXX).
• SWITCH OFF FOCUS-CABIN CAMERA MONITOR (Generates RFI!!!)
• To check the correlator outputs, type spd on a pkcccN xterm of bourbon. Some basic commands:
  • sel 11 to see spectra (DFB only)
  • sel pp11 to see profiles (DFB only)
  • sel aa, bb first IF
  • bins 1 - N time-binning mode only: it shows the first N bins of a time-cycle (DFB only)
  • x toggle "x" axis: channels <=> frequencies
  • ch x-y show only channels from #x to #y. It is usually useful to skip first and lasts channels, e.g. ch 5-8185
  • Additional commands for SPD can be found at the following: SPD Users Guide
• DATA LOCATION. On any SUN/Linux machine, data is located in directories
  • /nfs/PKCCC3_4 => DFB3
  • /nfs/PKCCC4_2 => DFB4

This document was generated by Stacy Mader on October 13, 2011 using texi2html 1.82.