Search Single
Carrying out a search-mode observation using a single beam
Currently search mode observations can be carried out using the PDFB3, PDFB4, BPSR and the analogue filerbank. The most flexibility is currently provided by the PDFB systems.
First a tcs schedule file needs to be created. An example is given below for PDFB4:
#
J1412+0224_R; P 14:12:00 +02:24:00; d4_cfg srch_256_512; d4_frq 1369.0; d4_tcyc 10; rcvr MULTI; tobs 60; mode srchset; sr4_nsblk 2048; sr4_btc 1.0; sr4_nbit 8; sr4_nprod 1; sr4_tsmp 1000
J1412+0224;P 14:12:15.80 +02:24:33.9; mode srch; tobs 3600
#
symbols are ignored and can be used to provide comments on a schedule line.- The first column
J1412+0224_R
andJ1412+0224
gives the name of the calibrator source and of the pulsar (or candidate position) - The command
P 14:12:00 +02:24:00
defines the calibrator/source position d4_cfg
gives the requested bandwidth and number of channels. Available configurations are:srch_1024_512
,srch_256_1024
,src_256_512
,srch_512_512
d4_frq
gives the requested observing frequency (in MHz)d4_tcyc
the requested cycle time (in seconds)rcvr
the receiver to usetobs
the observation time (in seconds)sr4_nsblk
the number of samples per blocksr4_nbit
the number of bits per sample (2, 4 or 8)sr4_nprod
the number of products (1 = total intensity, 2 = AA and BB, 3 = full Stokes)sr4_tsmp
the sampling time in microseconds
Note that the first line carries out a routine that sets the levels of the system using the pulsed cal (mode srchset
) whereas the second line actually carries out the observation (mode srch
).
- Make sure that the search mode has been selected on the tcs gui for PDFB4 (this is not done automatically by the schedule).
The output is a standard PSRFITS search mode file that can be processed using:
dspsr
- can fold the data to produce archivessearchplot
- allows the data to be plotted
Configurations
A list of the available configurations for PDFB4 are available here.
In progress
- A feature that automatically closes one file and opens another for writing is currently been tested. This feature is necessary to stop individual files from becoming too large.