Notes on new VLBA system at Green Bank

• Vital startup/shutdown info
• VLBA group wiki
• Setup information for station computer
• gb-dbe-1_boot_instructions.txt: Wolfgang's summary of rdbe boot-up information
• Pam's up-to-date upgrade page
• Knowledge page with hardware reboot and setup info
• vlba device browser

• Operators procedures for new RDBE/Mark5C VLBI system

• Operators and Friends checklist
• Project summaries

Fetch schedule files

• log in either to gbvlbi@gb-cc or vlbamon@gb-cc
• cd scripts
• CheckVLBI

Setting up and running schedules

• edit observ.tx -- note project name is case-sensitive; it should match the ....GB.py file name
• download vex file (or use CheckVLBI)
• Start Astrid,
  • if you give it the name of a .vex file, doing validate on "RunVLBI" makes the .py file.
  • save to database.
  • run the "RunVLBI"
• the executor should pick up the project in the scripts dir.
  • ObservScriptMonitor appears to pick up the change after you have saved a modified observ.tx file.

The Mark5C

• Haystack Mark5 website

 Mattias' notes on the Mark5C
MARK5C - Starting and Stopping
==============================
To stop MIB and DRS
    ps ax | grep mib
    kill -INT 
    /etc/init.d/nrao-mark5 stop

To start DRS and MIB
    /etc/init.d/nrao-mark5 start
    cd /export/home/mark5/vlbamon/mib_mark5c
    ./mib_mark5c ./ &>/tmp/mib.`date + %Y%m%d`.log &

Mark5C autostart has been installed -- all the necessary processes should come up on reboot or power-up.
To update the software -- K.Scott does it.


---+++The control computer
GB-CC (Control Computer)
========================
Directories
    Execution Scripts:
       /export/home/cc/vlba/bin/
    Observation Scripts (python files)
       /export/home/cc/vlba/scripts/

Check that the ObservScriptMonitor is running:
   ps ax | grep Observ

To get info about executor
    ./execInfo

To get info about current scans
    ./scanInfo

To queue up observation file to executor
    ./execAdd ../scripts/

Scripts for testing
    noop.GB.py (does nothing for 60 seconds)
    short.GB.py (starts 20sec after being queue up to executor; records 
data for 60sec)

The RDBE

• See attached files below for e-mail discussion about the rdbe setup.
• After power-up, start rdbe, mib, and reload personality.

IF Cabling

Using the VLBA device browser.

1. Click on the button "Launch" next to "VLBA OpsPack 1.6.8"
    * If you're using FireFox:
         * You'll see a window titled "Opening ets.jnlp".
         * Please choose Open "Other"
             open with:  /opt/local/jre/bin/javaws  [For red hat 6 computers]
             or /usr/local/jre/javaws   [for red hat 5, e.g., gb-cc or 

         * If you're using Internet Explorer:
         * It won't display a message at this point.
         * Please go to the next step

2. A window titled "Warning - Security" appears, click "Run"
3. It may take some time to load.
4. A window titled "OPS Login" appears.
    * Ignore the "Login Information section"
    * in the "Project Selection" section, click on the pull down table 
next to "Screen" => select "Device Browser" or "VLBA Monitor"
    * Click "Login"
5. A new window appears titled "Device Browser (1.6.4)"
    * in the box next to "ConnectTo"  select "gb*"
6. A module tree will appear .
    click on the node to the left of it.
    Click on RDBE
You'll see details about the running DBE at GB. You could use the device 
to see other rdbe at other sites: la-dbe-1, pt-dbe-1, etc...

The most important monitor points to look for are:
   * Dot_Actual_Time: It is the time reported by the FPGA. It increments 
with every 1pps. IF it is not incrementing that means there is a problem 
with the 1pps signal or the FPGA is not loaded.
   * Dot_ho_Time: it is the translation of the FPGA time into human 
readable format YYYYDDDHHMMSS:
       - YYYY: year
       - DDD: day of the year
       - HH: hours
       - MM: minutes
       - SS: seconds.
   * Dot_OS_Time: is the translation of the OS (PowerPC) time into the 
YYYYDDDHHMMSS format. It is useful to make sure that the FPGA time is in 
sync with the our notion (via NTP) of time.
   * Dot_OS_Diff: shows the difference between the FPGA's time and the 
OS time. It should be always 0.

   * IF{0|1}_rms: shows the rms counts for each IF.

   * ALC_pps: Indicates if the 1pps is getting to the ALC. If 0 usually 
it means problem => no 1pps signal.
   * ALC_sync: internal testing to the 1pps signal inside the 
synthesizer. It should be between 5-6.

Hi Frank,
All you need to do is:
(login on vlbamon@gb-cc)
telnet gb-dbe-1 5000
[log in as "roach"]
once connected do: dbe_personality=:RoachVLBI2010_nov22.bin;
Wait till you get a response back usually "!dbe_personality=0;"
Do: dbe_execute=init;    // Wait for response
Again: dbe_execute=init;   // Wait for response
Do: dbe_dot_set=;         //Wait for response

Quit your telnet session.

Right -- I never sent the start of the instructions:

subversion : https://svn.atnf.csiro.au/difx/
mkdir -p v2s/src; cd v2s

difxio:
         svn co https://svn.atnf.csiro.au/difx/libraries/difxio/trunk difxio
difxmessage:
         svn co https://svn.atnf.csiro.au/difx/libraries/difxmessage/trunk difxmessage
vex2difx:
         svn co https://svn.atnf.csiro.au/difx/applications/vex2difx/trunk vex2difx

Set PREFIX env var to point to the desired install root
Set ENV VAR PKG_CONFIG_PATH to $PREFIX/bin/pkgconfig
cd into difxio; cat README; run instructions  prefix=

Same for others.-W