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M&C 6.1 Release Notes

Released on Wednesday, Februrary 15, 2006 16:30-21:30

Also, see the GFM v6.1 Release Notes, SDFITS v1.4 Release Notes, and Turtle v6.1 Release Notes.

• Testing Activities
• New Features and Improvements
  • M&C System
    • Machine Changes
    • TaskMaster Changes
    • Configuration Tool
  • Observing System
    • Observation Management (Turtle)
    • GBT Status
    • GFM
  • Data Analysis
    • GBTIDL
    • SDFITS
    • AIPS++
• Known Issues
  • Power Supply 3 in Motor Rack (remains from last cycle)
  • IFManager connection failure messages from dependent child managers (remains from last cycle)
  • MM Converter Manager
  • Inclinometer Manager

Testing Activities

New Features and Improvements

M&C System

The M&C system is now being built on Red Hat Enterprise 4 using gcc3, and now runs on RHE4 machines. This major infrastructure upgrade was done to keep our software development tools current, to ease future maintenance, and to comply with observatory-wide computing decisions. Users should see no change in functionality as a result of this upgrade. Users must, however, run Cleo and Astrid on RHE4 machines.

Machine Changes

Two machines have been replaced in this release. Vortex has been replaced by the machine gbtdata, and the DCR host algol has been replaced by 'tank'. The Cleo TaskMaster screen tabs have been renamed to reflect these changes.

TaskMaster Changes

TaskMaster now has improved error reporting when a process fails, it will report the status as 'Failure'. In prior releases the status remained 'Run Once'. As a side effect, operators may note that if a process is stopped intentionally, the status will be reported as 'Failure', this is normal.

Configuration Tool

The config_tool sets the default LO1 tolerance equal to 1/100 the highest frequency resolution used, or 10Hz, whichever is the least. The frequency resolution is determined by the bandwidth divided number of frequency channels for each backend. Please note that there are two exceptions: (1) all user supplied backends (CGSR2, GASP, BCPM) as well as all pulsar backends (including the spigot) will be set to 1 Hz, and (2) no tolerance will be set for CCB configurations. No additional keywords have been added to the config tool to set the LO1 tolerance. However, if you wish to change the tolerance manually, you can simply add the following line to your astrid scheduling block: SetValues("LO1", {"tolerance": 10}) [for a 10Hz tolerance]

Also, the config tool now updates the current IF path information to the gbtstatus database.

Observing System

Many Python-based observing system applications are now using Python 2.4.2; several of the installed Python modules have been updated, including wxPython and numarray. This upgrade was done to keep our software development tools current, to fix library bugs, and to ease future maintenance. Users should see no change in functionality as a result of this upgrade.

Observation Management (Turtle)

Please see the Observing API Release Notes for detailed information. In summary, the following scan types have been modified in order to standardize their behavior and to incorporate new features: AutoFocus, AutoPeak, AutoPeakFocus, Focus, Peak. A full description of the syntax and behaviors of these scan types can be found at ScanTypes. *IMPORTANT!* - Because of the addition of the location argument calls to Focus will not be backwards compatible. Therefore, you will have to update all of your scheduling blocks that use Focus! Also Focus no longer requires a preceding call to Slew.

GBT Status

A number of improvements have been made to the gbtstatus application.

• Power infomation for PF receivers, IF Rack, Converter Rack, Analog Filter Rack and backends (where applicable) are displayed for the ifpaths used in the last configuration. Backend frequencies are shown for the Spectrometer, Spectral Processor and the DCR. The Spectrometer power is given as dB off from ideal, rather than duty cycles. If the Spectrometer power is off by more than 2.5 dB, the ifpath will be displayed in red. Tsys is included in the ifpath display for DCR paths. Note: PF2 power indications were not tested do to the unavailabilty of the receiver. Backend frequencies displayed for the KA receiver are incorrect. KA frequency calculations will be added when requirement issues are resolved.
• Commanded major and minor coordinates were added.
• The labels for actual coordinate modes were changed from "Major Epoch" and "Minor Epoch" to "Major Coord" and "Minor Coord".
• LFC corrections were added for Az, Cross El and El.
• LPC corrections were added for Az. The labels were changed to the standard GBT nomenclature for both the LPC and Focus corrections.
• The status of the Zernike model, FEM and Zero-point offsets are displayed (on or off).
• MJD was added.
• The switching state is displayed (switching or total power).

GBT Status is now available in Astrid as one of the default applications loaded at startup.

GFM

Please see the GFM Release Notes for detailed information. In summary, we have added two beta plugins - the Spectral Line Plugin and the Engineering Spectrometer Plugin. The Spectral Line plugin will remain in beta state until a) filesystem delays are resolved and integrations can be displayed up to ~2 sec, and b) staff scientists agree that the plugin is ready for general use by visiting astronomers. The Engineering Spectrometer Plugin will remain in beta state until all sponsor tests are completed.

Data Analysis

GBTIDL

GBTIDL will have a separate release late-March. Release notes for GBTIDL and the release date will be circulated via e-mail to gbtlocal.

Note that Hanning smoothing has been removed from SDFITS, meaning that users who expect or require their data to be smoothed must now do so manually from within GBTIDL.

SDFITS

The latest version of SDFITS contains changes and new additions. Most significantly, Hanning smoothing has been removed from spectrometer data by request from the Observing Issues Group. For more information, see Sdfits Hanning Removed. The memory leak problem has been fixed. Also, index file generation is now the default, and the -index option has been replaced with -noindex. The new additions to SDFITS include columns for weather information:

• TAMBIENT column specifies the ambient temperature in Kelvin.
• PRESSURE column specifies the ambient pressure in mmHg.
• HUMIDITY column specifies the fractional humidity.

For further details, see the SDFITS Release Notes.

AIPS++

We have upgraded to the latest version of AIPS++ stable, which is locally installed at /home/aips++/stable2.

Known Issues

Power Supply 3 in Motor Rack (remains from last cycle)

• Power supply 3 in the Motor Rack has a hardware problem. It always shows failed and the logs are not written.

IFManager connection failure messages from dependent child managers (remains from last cycle)

• During version changes, several child managers of managers with IFManager dependencies reported RPC connection errors with the IFManager. In every case, it was just one of the child managers of each manager reporting the problem.

MM Converter Manager

• The Millimeter Converter manager attempts to read the MCB bus even when it is off, causing error messages to be generated when the hardware is not installed.

Inclinometer Manager

• The inclinometer manager fails to start. This item is under investigation.