28/11/2006
		Medicina station report to the EVN TOG meeting


These items cover the period April 2006 - November 2006:

1) Mark5:
	
	- A further purchasing of disks/frame was done, up to now Medicina has added 100 TB to the EVN pool. 
	
	- Mark5 software version installed: 2.7x (2005.147) 
	
	
2) Field System:

	- The Field System version 9.9.0 was installed and tested succesfully. November session was ran with this release.

3) E-VLBI:

	- The fiber optic link at 1Gb/sec between Medicina and Bologna is available. 
	Medicina is partecipating to e-VLBI tests and e-VLBI experiments during the 2006. 
	At the moment the maximum sustained rate is 256Mb/sec along the whole link, principally due to the long 
	connection toward Bologna that does not allow to transmit JUMBO packets. When a direct connection Bologna-Medicina
	will be available much more than 256Mb/s will be reliably sustained. In the mean time we're upgrading the system CPU/
	motherboard in order to increase the possible data rate.

4) Receivers:
	
	- A 4.3-5.8GHz receiver for Medicina antenna was completed and installed. During e-VLBI tests fringe were found and
	JIVE correlation showed a high upgrade in term of polarization leakage: the D-terms are now 1-3% 
	when before they were 10-16%. The Tsys is almost a factor of two with respect the old receiver.
	- A 7-horn multifeed receiver in the band 18-26GHz is under finalization. 
	It will be installed at Medicina dish for testing and to make continuum survey. The central feed will also be used
	for VLBI: the performance estimate will be again of about a factor of two with respect the current receiver.
	New back-ends and new observations system management are also under development in order to enhance the single dish
	capability of the antenna.

5) Antenna :
	
	- The wear and tear of the elevation rack is really worrying to the point that a stop of the antenna activities is not excluded
	in the near future. The rack status is continously monitored but definitely a replacement is required. Many funds calls has been
	made last two years, but without any results yet.


A. Orfei
A. Orlati
G. Maccaferri