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M&C 6.4 Release Notes

Released on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 from 17:30 - 21:30

Also, see the Release Notes for the Observing API v6.4 and the Release Notes for GBTIDL v2.0.1.

• Testing Activities
• New Features and Improvements
  • M&C System
    • CCB Manager
  • Observing System
    • Observation Management (Turtle)
  • Data Analysis
    • GBTIDL
• Known Issues
  • Power Supply 2 in Motor Rack
  • IFManager connection failure messages from dependent child managers (remains from last cycle)
  • MM Converter Manager (remains from last cycle)

Testing Activities

New Features and Improvements

M&C System

CCB Manager

Backends that have the capability of producing stable, internally-generated signals provide the opportunity to implement end-to-end self-tests to validate the unit's signal processing. Such tests are invaluable for operations, engineers, and observers by providing go/no-go status for backends. To support such troubleshooting, we have added a self test for the Cal Tech Continuum Backend similar to the self tests for the Spectral Processor and Spectrometer. A wiki page describing the running of the CCB self test from a command line is available in the MnCKnowledge page. This self test will be integrated into CLEO as feasible some time before the beginning of high frequency season.

Observing System

Observation Management (Turtle)

To summarize, there is a new building block available called Horizon. Observing scripts allow an observer to specify a definition of the horizon, and use this definition to begin an observation when an object rises and/or end the observation when it sets. The Horizon object may be used to obtain the initial time that a given source is above the horizon including approximate atmosphere refraction in elevation where "above" may be defined when the object is created.

LST may now be specified in sexagesimal strings by adding the "LST" suffix.

There are four new ObservingDirectives: GetUTC, GetLST, Now, and WaitFor. GetUTC and GetLST return a float representing the current time in UTC or LST as hours since midnight. Now() returns the current time as a UTC time and date. WaitFor pauses the scheduling block until the specified time is reached, e.g., WaitFor("15:13:00 LST"). The expected wait time is printed in the observation log including a warning if the wait is longer than 10 minutes.

Finally, the definitions of startTime and stopTime have been enhanced to allow the observer to make use of Horizon in the various ScanTypes.

Data Analysis

GBTIDL

A patch to GBTIDL 2.0 has been released. A small number of bugs are fixed in this patch. There are no major enhancements to GBTIDL in this release. Please read the Release Notes for GBTIDL v2.0.1 for more details.

Known Issues

Power Supply 2 in Motor Rack

• Power supply 2 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 (remains from last cycle)

• 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.