VLBI Hands-on Workshop

The participants have been divived into groups. The preliminary program is given below. A detailed program for each participants is given in this document.

Thursday Morning 9-12
DBBC Hardware/Maintenance group A White-water-raft ride of VLBI datagroup C
DBBC operation group B Practical Correlation group D
Thursday afternoon 14-17
DBBC Hardware/Maintenance group B White-water-raft ride of VLBI datagroup D
DBBC operation group A Practical Correlation group C
Friday Morning 9-12
DBBC Hardware/Maintenance group C White-water-raft ride of VLBI data group A
DBBC operation group D Practical Correlation group B
Friday afternoon 14-17
DBBC Hardware/Maintenance group D White-water-raft ride of VLBI data group B
DBBC operation group C Practical Correlation group A



The prospective teachers and lecture rooms are as follows

TitleTeachersRoom
DBBC Hardware/MaintenanceGino Tuccari/Michael WunderlichLab
DBBC operationUwe Bach/Jonathan Quick Room behind the correlator
White-water-raft ride of VLBI dataBob Campbell/Jun Yang Lecture Hall 2
DiFX, software correlatorAlessandra Bertarini Room 0.44



A short description of different lecturues is given below.

DBBC Hardware/Maintenance
The aim of the workshop is to describe the structure, hardware, software and maintenance of the DBBC.

DBBC operation
The aim of the workshop is to go thorough the scheduling, experiment setup using the FS, continuous calibration and other operational aspects of the DBBC in the field.

White-water-raft ride of VLBI data
This will be a presentation that let you experience the white-water-raft ride of data (in the most general sense) from before observing, through correlation, through to the PI getting the data. The main goal is to illustrate what effects various actions/omissions at the stations may have on the quality of the final data and/or the difficulty of processing it.

Practical Correlation
Hands-on activities with the DiFX software correlator: brief introduction on what a correlator is, preparation of files for correlation, correlation and search for fringes with interpretation of the fourfit output. Various exercises to detect common problems at stations that would need to be resolved.