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Mark5eVLBI

Mark5B disk data format

Taken from Mark5B System User's Manual (9 June 2006) Section 5.

Data on disk is divided into equal-length disk frames (DF). Each DF has a header of 4 32-bit words followed by 2500 32-bit words of data (10000 bytes). The DF boundary is aligned with the UT second tick.

Disk Frame Header

Word 0	Synchronization word (0xABADDEED)
Word 1	Bits 31-16: User specifed
	Bit 15: T - tvg data (test data if set)
	Bits 14-0: DF # within second
Word 2-3	VLBA BCD Time code and 16 bit CRC

Sync word (32 bit)
User-specifed (16 bits)	T	Frame# within second (starting at 0)
VLBA BCD Time code word 1 ('JJJSSSSS')
VLBA BCD Time code word 2 (16 bit) ('.SSSS')	CRC 16 bit

Disk Data Format

Raw VLBI data is packed within a 32 bit word, with the earliest time sample corresponding to the least significant bit.

Mark5 control commands

Mark5 Control commands

The Mark5A protocol uses two TCP ports:

• m5data 2630/tcp # Mark5 data
• m5drive 2620/tcp # Mark5 control

Commands are sent to the m5drive port as newline terminated strings. The replies are newline terminated also.

Data is sent to the m5data port.

Mark5 commands

play_rate=data:<rate>

Used to set the output data rate of the Mark5 at the station.

Expected response:

!play_rate = 0 ;

play=off

Used to make the Mark5 stop playing if it was playing back data from disk.

net_protocol=<protocol>:<sockbuf size>:<workbuf size>

Used to set the network data-transport protocol. The <sockbuf size> argument is the socket send buffer size. You should probably use this value in a setsockopt(..., SOL_SOCKET, SO_SBDBUF, ...) call on the socket used to send the data.

Expected response:

!net_protocol = 0 ;

mtu=<mtu size>

Set the mtu for UDP transfers

Expected response:

! !mtu = 0 : $mtu bytes;

in2net=connect:<ip>

Used to make the Mark5 at the station connect to the Mark5 at JIVE. The <ip> argument will be the IP address of the Mark5 at JIVE, which should at that point be ready to accept a connection from the Mark5 at the station. The connection should be made to the m5data port. No data will be sent yet.

Expected response:

!in2net = 0 ;

in2net=on

Used to make the Mark5 at the station start sending data.

Expected response:

!in2net = 1 ;

in2net=disconnect

Used to make the Mark5 at the station stop sending data and terminate the connection.

Expected response:

!in2net = 0 ;

in2net=off

??

Expected response:

!in2net = 0 ;

mode=<data mode>:<data submode>

Used to set the playback mode of the Mark5 at the station.

Expected response:

!mode = 0 ;

status?

Used to query the status of the (remote) Mark5.

Expected response:

!status? 0 : 0x00000001 ; (when not sending data)
!status? 0 : 0x00010001 ; (when sending data)

play?

Request play state (disk only??)

Expected response:

!status? 0 : 0x00000001 ; (when not sending data)
!status? 0 : 0x00010001 ; (when sending data)

clock_set=<rate>:int:<rate>

To set the Mark5b clock rate to "rate"

!clock_set = 0 ;

Setting TVG test

To setup the Mark5 to send the TVG test vector, run:

 mode=tvg:8
 play_rate=data:4

This will send 8 tracks at 4 Mbps, ie a total of 32 Mbps.