Westerbork VLBI remarks as input for TOG report. 4  December 2009 
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Regular Session Participation:

        Westerbork participated  in the X,M,C and L-band experiments of session 2009-2 and 2009-3.
        Observing was mostly successful. FTP fringe files were produced by the system, and fringes of good quality were found. 

        Severe RFI on 1610-1634 MHz, gave us a hard time to phase up the array for that frequency.

        There was a problem in session 2009-2  with the main power supply. We lost about 8 hours recording time.

        There was also a problem for non standard project EG042. This project had two setups. One setup was no problem but the other setup
        needed 8 different sky frequencies USB + LSB for LCP. We could only offer the first 4 frequencies for this setup.
        The reason for this is that each of our 8 TADUmax sky-frequencies can be assigned to either one upper, or one lower sideband.(But both to LCP and RCP).
        This works fine for all standard setups.


e-VLBI:
	Westerbork performed well during e-VLBI observations and tests (see http://www.expres-eu.org/evlbi.html)
        e-VLBI was done using TADUmax and Mark5B
	A minor concern is the lack of calibration data for the previous e-VLBI run for the 25th hour of observation. This problem will be fixed soon.

Tied Array: 
	The new (fully digital) tied array hardware (TADUmax)has been used for both sessions 2009-2 and 2009-3)
        It performed well. Due to the fact that our tuneup software for phasing up the array was improved,
        we had no pol swaps anymore.
               

Single Dish:
       The 5cm single dish sessions of 2009-2 and 2009-3 were done using TADUmax and mark5B.
       This combination performed well

Field System:
       Both sessions were done using FS-Linux 7 and FS9.10.3. It performed well.
       We plan to update to FS-Linux 8 asap


Mark5B: OK. We only recorded Pata diskpacks

        The DIMINO version is:  Mark5B DIM : 2007y222d04h : 1 : mark5-710 : 1 : 1 : 2.7x : 0x1b : 0x5bdb
        The Linux version is:   Etch  2.6.18-6-686:(Debian 2.6.18.dfsg.1-23):(dannf@debian.org) 
        The firmware version is:   12.05

        During  the 6cm part of session 2009-3 the red TVR LED was on for part of the time. No errors in logfiles.
        It went out after switching off both diskpacks and stayed out after switching them on again

Other: 
      All e-VLBI observations were executed by remote control. (from Dwingeloo controlroom, home and Jive control room.) 
      The normal sessions were done by the operators in shifts on the WSRT site.
     



25 November 2009

Geert kuper.
Modified by Nicolas Pradel