The realtime fringe checking runs on “bolverk”. It calls the DiFX software correlator to process the data.

The following environment variables need to be set (or added to existing paths)

All these will be set if you add

source ~vlbi/RtFC/setup.csh

into your .cshrc file. This is done by default for the vlbi account on Parkes.

Log onto bolverk (at least) 3 times. Run the following in separate terminals (and in the following order). Give each process time to start before starting the next.

→ > control.pl → >ui.pl

To run the corr process, you need to first change to a writable directory with lots of space. The corr.pl program needs the vex schedule files so it can the work out the correlation parameters (source position, frequency etc). A typical startup would be:

cd /home/vlbi/fringe/Oct10/v131az
corr.pl v131az.skd

Usually fringe testing is from from a VNC session on bolverk:1. Start an xterm then run the command:

→ > rtfc_corrwin.csh

Alternatively, if you log onto pam0 with X11 forwarding enabled (test by trying to start xeyes), then run rtfc_corrwin.csh

Run control.pl and ui.pl in the appropriately marked xterm.

Before you run corr.pl, you must “cd” to the the correct directory by hand and run corr.pl telling it which vexfiles to read.

Generally you want to use better antenna positions than are the default in the vexfile, including selecting which ATCA reference antenna you are using (strictly the pad position of the reference antenna). Run this before corr.pl as:

→> fixpos.pl -atca W104 vt999.vex

If you have Mark5B antenna included which have been scheduled as Mark5a in the vexfile then you need to run “addMark5B.pl”:

→> addMark5B.pl vt999.vex Ww Pa Ka

Note than the channel order of Mark5B stations may be wrong in the vexfile. This requires manually editing of the vex file.