[daip] quarterly rept

[Tony Beasley]

Please review the following, send me any changes you would like. Do not simply 
edit the file; tell me the changes you want. TB


AIPS quarterly report (Q1-00), March 27 2000
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Versions
--------

The current test version of AIPS is 31DEC99, the final "release" of AIPS.
31DEC99 is available from our ftp site continuously, and will continue to
be patched and developed where necessary over the next several years.  AIPS
is currently distributed nightly to all NRAO sites and to a number of
non-NRAO sites in the US, Europe and Japan.  We expect the nightly
distribution list to continue to grow as the "Midnight Job" becomes the
standard method for obtaining AIPS.  Full support for SVLBI processing has
been available since 15APR98.  The majority (75%) of AIPS distributions are
now received by ftp, although the CD-ROM distribution is still in strong
demand.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The last standard release of AIPS is
15OCT99, which is still available from NRAO.  
The 15APR98 version of AIPS was distributed to over 344 non-NRAO sites,
running Solaris, Linux, DEC Alpha, HP and SGI versions. The overall number
of AIPS installations has continued to grow over the last two years.  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX


In February Ketan Desai left the AIPS group to work in the computing
industry. Eric Gresien will be making an extended visit to the AOC to
address the programming shortfall; he will be in Socorro from early April
until October. We are currently advertising for a replacement
programmer/user support person in Socorro.


General Issues
--------------

- UVCON - a new task to generate a uv database for a given array
  configuration. The array geometry can be specified in a number of
  different coordinate systems. Use of this task to simulate ALMA
  configurations is underway.

- IMAGR - multi-resolution clean has been added to IMAGR. It takes
  advantage of the multiple field capabilities to model the source
  simultaneously as a collection of Gaussian objects of different widths. 

- New task SCIMG - simple single-field image and self-calibrate a dataset.

- Editing tasks EDITR, EDITA modified to allow rapid editing of multi-IF
  multi-polarization data via the CROWEDED adverb.
 
- Phase re-referencing - underlying routines re-referencing solutions to
  reference antennas were rewritten, correcting a number of long-standing
  bugs. Error reporting has been improved. 

- FILLM and DOCALIB=2 - FILLM now has the option of using antenna
  temperatures to set the data weights (CPARM(2)). Throughout all of AIPS,
  the option of applying calibration tables to both the data AND weights is
  now available thru DOCALIB=2. 

- New task FGPLT to display times when uv-samples are flagged. 

- New installation wizard is approaching completion; using a Perl script
  the installation of AIPS will be significantly simplified. 

- Improvements to DBCON to allow the combining of disparate datasets. 

- Subtle bugs in the Linux compiler concerning roundoff were addressed. 

- Errors in UVCOP/UVFIX/UJOIN/CALIB/TI2HA/UVMTH/TBIN/SPFLG/SETFC corrected. 

Patches for 15OCT99
-------------------

- Patches for the AIPS tasks DBCON and IMAGR for the 15OCT99 distribution
  are available from the NRAO AIPS www page. 

Goals for Q2 2000
-----------------

- Continuing maintenance and user support.
- Complete installation/registration wizard for 31DEC99
- Low-level code development in support of NRAO instruments. 
- Continue pdating user documentation.
- Additional data editing and weighting tools (completed).
- Streamline loading and calibration of VLBI data.