[daip] reading VLBA tapes

[Data Analysts]

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>From neil at arcetri.astro.it Thu Mar  1 06:40 MST 2001
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 14:36:08 +0100 (MET)
From: Neil Nagar <neil at arcetri.astro.it>
X-X-Sender:  <neil at hercules>
To: <analysts at cv3.cv.nrao.edu>
Subject: reading VLBA tapes
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Lines: 32
Status: RO


Dear Analysts,

I have a question that some of you may have some
experience with:

I require to load data from a VLBA distribution tape
into AIPS on my computer. However, I do not have a tape
drive on my computer and do not have access to an
"AIPS" DAT tape-drive over the network. There are however,
several UNIX machines with DAT tapes (but without AIPS. For
various reasons, I cannot easily load AIPS or other software on
these machines).

Is it possible to read a VLBA distribution tape
to disk (using e.g. "dd") on a regular UNIX machine,
using a unix command? So that one may later read the
data from the disk file into AIPS using FILLM.
If so, what command, options, blocksize etc are required
for the unix reading from tape to disk?

I have read the help page at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/aips/aipsmgr/
but cannot use either of the suggested methods because
a) I cannot install AIPS on the machines with DAT drives and
b) the machines with DAT drives cannot "see" the AIPS
   installation on my computer because of the way our network
   is set up.

Thanks,
Neil Nagar.



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