FIRST APOD tracking test using continuous tracking facilities.

• Antennas: Ke Yg

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# Schedule summary for session: 316a                                              #
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Nominal start:     2016-11-11 22:10:00
Nominal end:       2016-11-11 22:43:11
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Scan#  Source name              Type  Start [UT]  End [UT]  Dur [s]  Sations
1      0454-234                 q     22:10:00    22:10:30  30       Ke Yg
2      0642+449                 q     22:10:59    22:11:29  30       Ke Yg
3      1334-127                 q     22:12:06    22:12:36  30       Ke Yg
4      1057-797                 q     22:13:06    22:13:40  34       Ke Yg
5      0851+202                 q     22:14:34    22:15:04  30       Ke Yg
6      PN1A [BAC]               s     22:20:25    22:24:25  240      Ke
7      PN1A [BAC]               s     22:24:40    22:28:11  211      Ke Yg
8      PN1A [BAC]               s     22:28:26    22:32:50  264      Yg
9      1144-379                 q     22:37:56    22:38:32  36       Ke Yg
10     0727-115                 q     22:39:23    22:39:53  30       Ke Yg
11     0537-441                 q     22:40:21    22:40:51  30       Ke Yg
12     1424-418                 q     22:41:27    22:41:57  30       Ke Yg
13     1104-445                 q     22:42:35    22:43:11  36       Ke Yg
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• With VieVS Satellite scheduling tool, by A. Hellerschmied
  • quasar block scheduled automatically
  • APOD scans manually scheduled
• Sky plots: sky_316a_ke_2210-2243.pdf sky_316a_yg_2210-2243.pdf
• Block of 4 strong quasars were observed before and after the APOD scans
  • Min scan duration set to 30 sec
  • Sub-netting deactivated
• See catalog files for full setup
• 1 sec time gap in VEX files between APOD scans
  • Continuous tracking and recording

• Observers: Jamie, Lucia, Andreas
• Comments: APOD track with Ke and Yg. Blocks of quasars before and after (10 min). 5 min break between quasar and sat. AzEl files are manually loaded via antenna control HMI. Quite stressy but works. Signal (carrier and DOR tones) was clearly visible in spectrum analysers, both in S-band and X-band. DOR tones also visible in autocorrelation (0.25 sec of data). Carrier might be saturating.
  • 5 minutes time gap between quasars and satellite required to switch the tracking modes is required
  • late on source messages for quasar scans (set calibration time, etc., was set to 0 in param.txt =⇒ Use std. values for next experiments!)
  • Jamie had to merge the two individual scans defined in the VEX files for both stations in the snp files (remove recorder=off). Apparently “datastop=30sec” in the VEX file had no effect on. =⇒ Next experiments: Just 1 sec time gap between individual scans!
• Ke:
  • S band signal: Clearly visible (carrier + DOR tones)!
    • quite constant amplitude. Not too much variation
  • X band signal: Not time to check it on SA
  • in auto correlation window: All tones visible!
    • There seems to be a signal distortion due to saturation for the carrier
• Yg:
  • S band signal: Clearly visible (carrier + DOR tones)!
    • quite constant amplitude. Not too much variation
  • X band signal: Clearly visible (carrier + DOR tones)!
    • Small variations in the signal strength
  • in auto correlation window: All tones visible!
    • There seems to be a signal distortion due to saturation for the carrier

• Satellite tracking based on direct AzEl input files
  • Azel values were calculated in VieVS based on predicted WGS84 state vectors (provided by J. Sun)
• Station equipment controlled by combined VEX files

• All control files used for the observations (VEX schedules, schedule summaries, orbit files, AzEl tracking files, etc.) are provided on the VieVS server (sorts@vievs.hg.tuwien.ac.at) at /home/sorts/apod/2016/
• Results:
  • Plot showing fringe fitting results (residual multiband delays, delay rates, SNR, formal errors):
  • VSO observation files containing the multiband total delays calculated by HOPS/fourfit (remove the .txt file name extension to load the VSO files in VieVS): 316a.07_redclk-ion_free.vso.txt 316a.07_redclk-s.vso.txt 316a.07_redclk-x.vso.txt