[daip] question about aips tasks

Hiroko Shinnaga shinnaga at submm.caltech.edu
Mon Dec 20 18:19:43 EST 2004


Dear Eric Greisen,

   Thank you very much for your kind and prompt
response to my questions.

>  > 1. I found a disagreement between LISTR statements
>  >    and the plot made with VPLOT for a data set.
>  >    The situation is as follows.  Although LISTR reports
>  >    data on some specific object were taken during some
>  >    specific time periods, the plot created by VPLOT is
>  >    shifted about 15 min from the LISTR statements. Namely,
>  >    the observing periods has a time lag roughly about 15
>  >    minutes between LISTR and VPLOT.  I checked the observing
>  >    script which was run during the period.  Comparing with
>  >    the script, it seems that LISTR output looks correct
>  >    and VPLOT looks not correct.  With UVPLOT, the
>  >    plot of time vs. phase (or amp) agrees with
>  >    LISTR results.  So, it seems VPLOT creates wrong plot.
>  >    I tried to specify time using the BPARM option.  However,
>  >    the results were the same.  Could you let me know
>  >    possible reasons why this is happening?  Have you
>  >    seen this problem before?
> 
>       No and I do not see it when I try right now.  I would need to
> see the inputs used to VPLOT.  Note that time is BPARM(1)=12 in VPLOT
> and =11 in UVPLT.  BPARM(1)=11 is Greenwich time but that should
> differ by an integer number of hours.

I set time as IAT hours for both UVPLT and VPLOT.
These should give us the same pattern for UVPLT and
VPLOT.  But VPLOT gives me a weird pattern.  I
carefully checked LISTR 'SCAN' output on the data.
I should get the pattern shown in UVPLT, not like
VPLOT.  Here I attach the plots in gif.


> 
>  > 
>  > 2.  Using the same data set, when I set xinc as 3
>  >     or 2 on vplot, I couldn't see almost any point on many
>  >     baselines (such as antenna 1, 8, 11, 17, 18,19,
>  >     etc).  However, when I set xinc as 1, I could see
>  >     all the data points including baselines of antenna
>  >     1 etc, which looked missing using xinc = 2 or 3.
>  >     Could you let me know possible reasons why this is
>  >     happening?
> 
>      If XINC=3 then only every 3rd point is considered for plotting.
> If the number of baselines selected with the adverbs is a multiple of
> 3 then you should see lots of points for some baselines and virtually
> none for others.  Editing and other vagueries usually make XINC
> reasonable but in small data sets you could easily see the effect you
> are reporting.  Use XINC=1, modern computers are fast enough.

   Yes, I will use xinc=1, instead of 2 or 3, because
the computer is fast enough to handle it.


>  > 
>  > 3.  Above two issues are  happening only on a specific
>  >      data set. I created this AIPS data file using
>  >      multiple(four) tape files with FILLM.  For the
>  >      other data set that I created from one tape file
>  >      with FILLM, with the same options, I didn't have
>  >      the above problems.  Do you think these are related?
>  >      (Please note that both data sets were taken using
>  >      fast switching.  I don't know if these are related.
>  >      But just as a info. )
>  > 
>  >    I would like to appreciate your response soon,
>  > if possible.  I have my next VLA run this week
>  > Thursday.  In case the data itself have some problem,
>  > I need to investigate my script to avoid these issues.
> 
> Did you run FILLM 4 times and use DBCON or did you run FILLM once with
> all 4 files read?  The latter may end up with times offset by 5 days.
> The former could get interesting too if the four files are from very
> different dates.  Times are kept in single-precision floating days and
> would get inaccurate if many days were involved.  But UVPLT and VPLOT
> should see the same times since the data are handed to both of them
> from the same subroutines.
> 

The above might be caused by the way that I used FILLM.
Let me explain more about this.  Followings are
the input parameters that I used to read the four
tape files.

///////////////////////////////////////
 >inp
AIPS 1: FILLM     Task to read a VLA archive tape
AIPS 1: Adverbs     Values                 Comments
AIPS 1: ----------------------------------------------------------------
AIPS 1: INTAPE        1                    Tape drive number
AIPS 1: INFILE     'MYAREA:AS813.NOV02.XP                           '
AIPS 1:                                    Non-blank: disk file name
AIPS 1: NFILES        0                    Number of files to advance
AIPS 1:                                    Also applies to ON-LINE!
AIPS 1: BAND       '    '                  Freq. band (4,P,L,C,X,U,K,Q)
AIPS 1: QUAL         -1                    Source qualifier -1=>all
AIPS 1: CALCODE    '    '                  Calibrator code
AIPS 1: VLAOBS     '      '                VLA obs. pgm. name ('AZ99')
AIPS 1: VLAMODE    '  '                    VLA obs. mode ('  '=any)
AIPS 1: REFDATE    '        '              Reference date. 'yyyymmdd'
AIPS 1: TIMERANG   *all 0                  Timerange selected
AIPS 1: BCHAN         1                    First spectral channel
AIPS 1: ECHAN         0                    Highest spectral channel
AIPS 1: OUTNAME    '            '          Output UV file name (name)
AIPS 1: OUTSEQ        0                    Output UV file name (seq. #)
AIPS 1: OUTDISK       1                    Output UV file disk unit #.
AIPS 1: DOUVCOMP     -1                    1 (T) => compressed data
AIPS 1: DOALL        -1                    1 (T) => write all data.
AIPS 1: DOCONCAT     -1                    1 (T) => append data to old
AIPS 1:                                    files
AIPS 1: NCOUNT        0                    Number of files to read
AIPS 1: DOWEIGHT      1                    Use nominal sensitivity to
AIPS 1:                                    scale weights?
AIPS 1:                                    = 10, use Memo 108 weights
AIPS 1: DOACOR       -1                    Load autocorrelation data?
AIPS 1: CPARM         0           0        User options.
AIPS 1:               0           0        1 => Avg. time (seconds)
AIPS 1:               0           0        2 => bitmap    (see help)
AIPS 1:               0          0.05           = 16 for planets & Sun
AIPS 1:               0           0        3 => Max. OK IF status
AIPS 1:                                         <=3 => 3
AIPS 1:                                    4 => Control dropping of
AIPS 1: ** press RETURN for more, enter Q or next line to quit print **
#
AIPS 1:                                         shadowed data
AIPS 1:                                         < 0 => no shadow check
AIPS 1:                                         0 => 25 m limit
AIPS 1:                                         > 0 => Shadow limit is
AIPS 1:                                               CPARM(4) in meters
AIPS 1:                                    5 = channel code (see HELP)
AIPS 1:                                    6 => Subarray number-see HELP
AIPS 1:                                    7 => FQ entry tolerance (kHz)
AIPS 1:                                         (see HELP)
AIPS 1:                                    8 => CL table time incr. min
AIPS 1:                                    9 => TY table time incr. min
AIPS 1:                                    10=> Calibrator avg. time
AIPS 1: DPARM      *all 0                  Selection by Frequency
AIPS 1:                                    1+2 => A Frequency (Hz)
AIPS 1:                                    3+4 => B Frequency (Hz)
AIPS 1:                                    5+6 => C Frequency (Hz)
AIPS 1:                                    7+8 => D Frequency (Hz)
AIPS 1:                                    9 => tolerance for A&C
AIPS 1:                                    10 => tolerance for B&D
AIPS 1: BPARM        20           1        Opacity and Gain curve
AIPS 1:               0           0        control (see help)
AIPS 1:               0           0           0           0
AIPS 1:               0           0.75
AIPS 1: IN2FILE    '                                                '
AIPS 1:                                    Antenna gains file
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Under the directory MYAREA, I have four tape
files named as follows.

AS813.NOV02.XP1
AS813.NOV02.XP2
AS813.NOV02.XP3
AS813.NOV02.XP4

I issued "go" only once to use FILLM.
I was told that the above parameter setting
for infile 'MYAREA:AS813.NOV02.XP" would
work.  Would you think this is not a right
way to do?



> So far as I can tell you should have no problem in your data, but I
> have no idea what VPLOT appears to be doing or why.

I really hope that would be the case.


Hope to hear from you.  Thank you very much for
your help.


Hiroko



-- 
Hiroko Shinnaga, Staff Scientist    email: shinnaga at submm.calteh.edu
Caltech Submillimeter Observatory   Phone: 808-935-1909
California Institute of Technology  Fax:   808-961-6273
111 Nowelo St., Hilo, HI 96720 USA  http://puuoo.submm.caltech.edu/~hs
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