Torun (Tr) Station Report
(TOG, Yebes, November 12th 2007)
Brief Report of Recent EVN Sessions Problems
In the March 2007 session we experienced a failure in Mk5 recording, which
ultimately was found to be due to a disk-pack problem. It resulted in
the loss of one whole experiment and part of another. For the Methanol
band observations, upgraded receivers were mounted, but this operation
proved unsuccessful, since one channel was completely insensitive and
the other had considerably degraded sensitivity.
In March two bands had swapped polarizations (corrected soon after JIVE's notes).
The June session had similar problems (swapped polarizations and still
bad sensitivity of the 5 cm receivers). The sensitivity of 5 cm receivers
has been considerably (though still not satisfactorily) improved before
the Autumn session.
Changes/Upgrades Made to Hardware/Software
In the beginning of May 2007 the Mark5A has been upgraded with a new
motherboard, CPU, power supply and disk in accordance with recommendations of
the JIVE staff.
Hardwired numbers have now been set to all BBC units (visible in logs).
The antenna focal area has been rebuilt to accommodate a new OCRA array.
FS 9.9.2 version has been used in all the three sessions.
Mark5A version 2005y147d11h was generally used; inadvertable installation
(after some e-VLBI tests) of the version 2007y120d00h posed problems, especially
in this October session (only N07M3 affected), but also in June 2007.
e-VLBI
The station has participated in all the regular, testing and demonstration
experiments organized by JIVE. Considerable progress has been made in
terms of data throughput thanks to the upgrade of Mk5 and, of course, efforts
of people involved in JIVE and at the station. It seems sustained
transmission rate of 512 Mbps is possible at present; very recently
promising results were obtained with the rates reaching 1 Gbps. There are very
good prospects for 10 Gbps link of the station to the Torun node in 2008.
Other matters
During the period from February till May 2007 a small campaign has been carried
at the station aiming at solving problems of calibration. The conclusion
is that the station BBCs (P+G made) are the main cause of troubles. Also a few
notes of more general interest were outlined. A
full
report is available on the net.
Kaz Borkowski, Genek Pazderski & Greg Hrynek