! Start with a big cover letter. coverlet / This project needs about 100 hours times 45 baselines to meet the sensitivity requirements. This time can be accumulated in many separated sessions. One session should be a full track with all antennas to set the calibration and ensure full uv coverage. I have submitted a schedule as bw067c for that session. The other sessions can involve as little as 2 hours and as few as 6 antennas. The observing frequency is 327 MHz. Tropospheric weather is not an issue - any conditions are ok. The ionosphere and the solar corona are potential problems. An outcome of the test observations (bw067a and bw067b) was that we should not observe near the sun. So please don't schedule this in the months of April through July. As per discussions with Dave Medcalf, I have set up this schedule to use a SCHED optimization mode that allows any subset of a full track to be designated by only changing the start time and the overall duration. So, with only modifications to those parameters, this schedule can be used repeatedly to build up the required baseline hours. See the "Initial Scan Information" section in the key file. The schedule uses 1.3 tape passes per hour. Here is the official dynamic scheduling sheet: ================================================================ Preferred Dynamic Contraints. Alter [defaults] as desired. ================================================================ Equipment constraints: Stations. Below each station code, the "o" indicates an [optional] station that is to be used if it is available. Change "o" to "r" if the station is required or change "o" to "n" if the station is not to be used. SC HN NL FD LA PT KP OV BR MK o o o o o o o o o r Minimum number of stations [6]: May we swap PT for a single VLA antenna? [yes] Consult http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~gtaylor/y1gotcha.html to decide. If you adopt the default, then both PT and VLA1 must be in the stations list in the keyin file. Bands and polarizations. Below each band code, insert "R" if the righthand polarization is to be used, "L" if the lefthand polarization is to be used, "d" if dual polarizations are to be used, or "o" if the band is in your setups but scheduling should not be constrained by its availability. 90cm 50cm 20cm 13cm 6cm 4cm 2cm 1cm 7mm 3mm d Weather constraints: [appropriate for bands marked "L", "R", or "d" above and for at least the minimum number of stations] Date constraints: Preferred date(s), usually a series start [none]: Excluded dates plus reason [none]: April through July (too close to Sun). Preferred interval between segments in days [none]: Special conditions (e.g., a series with different spacings in time) [See the comments at the top.]: endcover / ! ================================================================ ! ========================================================== ! ================= Cover Information ==================== ! ========================================================== ! version = 1 expt = 'Image 3C120 at 90cm - calibrator test' expcode = bw067h piname = 'Craig Walker' address1 = 'National Radio Astronomy Observatory' address2 = 'P. O. Box O' address3 = 'Socorro, New Mexico, 87801' address4 = ' U.S.A. ' phone = '505 835 7247 ' obsphone = '505 835 7247 ' email = cwalker@nrao.edu fax = '505 835 7027 ' obsmode = '6cm 128-4-2 ' obstype = VLBA note1 = ' ' ! ========================================================== ! ============== Correlator Information ================== ! ========================================================== correl = Socorro coravg = 2 corchan = 64 cornant = 10 corpol = on corwtfn = uniform corsrcs = standard cortape = DAT corship1 = 'Craig Walker' corship2 = 'P. O. Box O' corship3 = 'Socorro NM 87801' cornote1 = '' ! ========================================================== ! ================== Program control ===================== ! ========================================================== overwrit autotape = 2 minpause = 10 prestart = 20 sumitem = el1, az1, tape1, tape2 ! ========================================================== ! ======================= Setup file ===================== ! ========================================================== ! setini = bw051.set / pcal = off band = '90cm' ! Observing band. SCHED had frequency. nchan = 4 ! Number of baseband channels. bbfilt = 8.0 ! Bandwidth per baseband channel (MHz) pol = dual ! RCP, LCP, or DUAL. bits = 2 ! Bits per sample ! Move the frequency up 2 MHz from the default to help VLA ! bandpass shape. (but not using VLA, so ... ) freqref = 324.49, 324.49, 332.49, 332.49 / ! Note: Total bit rate = 2*bbfilt*nchan*bits endset / ! ========================================================== ! ======================== Optmization ===================== ! ========================================================== optmode = 'scans' opminant = 4 opminel = 12 ! ========================================================== ! ================= Initial Scan Information ============= ! ========================================================== lst = vlba_pt !year = 2003 !month = 11 day = 59690 start = 23:10:00 ! Should be 23:00:00 LST(PT) or later. opdur = 11:00:00 ! This sets the length of time to be scheduled ! The observation should fall in the LST(PT) range of ! 23:00:00 to 10:00:00 ! If you attempt to schedule outside this range, there can be ! weird behavior because there may not be any source up. ! ========================================================== ! ======================== The Scans ===================== ! ========================================================== ! MK down at start. setup = bw051.set stations = VLBA_SC, VLBA_HN, VLBA_NL, VLBA_FD, VLBA_LA, VLBA_PT, VLBA_KP, VLBA_OV, VLBA_BR, VLBA_MK ! 3C286, 3C454.3, and 3C84 are potential calibrators group 7 rep 12 ! group is about 76 min. Want 660 min total. source = 3C147 dwell=03:00 / source = 3C286 dwell=03:00 / source = 3C120 dwell=20:00 gap=02:00 / source = J0423-0120 dwell=03:00 gap=00:00 / source = 3C120 dwell=20:00 / source = J0423-0120 dwell=03:00 / source = 3C120 dwell=20:00 /