User's guide of program Phase Doctor


Contents:

Overview

Program Phase_Doctor is an interactive graphical tool for investigation and calibration of instrumental delays in a given geo-VLBI experiment.

Input information for Phase_Doctor is

  1. a pair of X- and S-band databases which are assumed to be in the SOLVE databases catalogue system;
  2. log-files of all stations.

Phase_Doctor is for

Loading the experiment

Usage: phase_doctor [-h] [-f <input_file>] [-d <experiment_id>] [-v <verbosity_level>] [-w <web_dir>] Options Phase_doctor requires log-files for all stations and a pair of databases for X- and S-band which are assumed to be already in the SOLVE catalogue system. Input files are to be specified in the so-called definitions file which is passed to a Phase_Doctor.

Format of a definitions file:

<Keyword> <value_1> [<value_2>] Keyword is one of

Example of a definitions file: DATABASE: $99MAY18XA * LOG: ALGOPARK /diskB5/logs/ca062_log_algo LOG: GILCREEK /diskB5/logs/ca062_log_gilc LOG: MATERA /diskB5/logs/ca062_log_mate LOG: MEDICINA /diskB5/logs/ca062_log_medi LOG: HARTRAO /diskB5/logs/ca062_log_hart LOG: NRAO85~3 /diskB5/logs/nrao85_3_log_hart LOG: WESTFORD /diskB5/logs/ca062_log_west If log file for some stations(s) is not available you can omit the line in the definitions file for that station but then Phase_Doctor will not "see" that station as if it didn't participate in the experiment. An experiment file is created after processing the input definitions file. An experiment identifier is a main part of the definition file name (without path and extension). For example, if a definitions file has name /geo/vlbi/phase/99MAY18XA.def then the experiment identifier would be 99MAY18XA

Phase_Doctor parses definitions file, then reads both databases, then read and parses all log-files. The program writes down an intermediary file in the directory with names specified in the variable PHD_DIR defined in the ../src/solve/gsfcb.i file. The name of the intermediary file has the same main part as the definitions file but extension phd. Then Phase_Doctor displays the first user menu.

The next call of Phase_Doctor for this experiment may be done either by specifying a definitions file or by specifying an experiment identifier, f.e.

phase_doctor -f /geo/vlbi/phase/99MAY18XA.def or phase_doctor -d 99MAY18XA or phase_doctor -d 99MAY18XA.phd The latter variant is executed much faster.

Graphic interface

Phase_Doctor uses graphic
Multi_DiaGI interface. Two kind of menus appear at the screen: purely command menus and command-graphic menus. The menus of the first sort contain a set of command yellow-brown boxes. The menu of the second type contains both a set of command yellow-brown boxes in the right part of the screen and a set of grey boxes with plots in the left part of the screen.

A yellow-brown command box contains a brown letter code in the right upper corner of the box and the text of the command. A user can execute a command either by hitting a key with the letter code using keyboard or by positioning the cursor to the command box and hitting either the left or the middle mouse button. All DiaGI commands can be applied to the expanded graphic box, f.e. changing boundary box, printing and etc.

A grey graphic box can be expanded to the entire screen if user position the cursor on the box and hit either the left or the middle mouse button.

Right/mouse and a keyboard key X always means exit the current menu level and return to the previous level of menu.

Many plots have argument Time in hours. Time tag 0 corresponds to the nominal start of the session (first value of lcode INTERVAL recorded in the database).

Many plots admits to have two types of bounding boxes for plots: global and local. Global bounding box is a bounding box between minimal and maximal values of parameters and arguments among all displayed plots. Local bounding box is a bounding box between minimal and maximal values of parameters and arguments for each plot individually.

A hard copy of graphic boxes can be obtained. Refer to the Multi_DiaGI manual.

Analysis of system temperature

Normally each station measures system temperature before each scan and records it in log-file. Phase_doctor parses log files: find a correspondence between the index of the tsys arrays and a channels sequence, put the system temperature to the correct slot and filters out false readings: it discards system temperature values below 10K and higher than 900K as well as "values" of system temperature $$$$$$$.

Option (T) Plots of system temperatures is invoked from the main Phase_Doctor menu: the menu which has a title Phase_Doctor, its version and the identifier of the database. No plots will be shown if the station didn't record system temperature in log-file or some channels were dropped in fringing.

Plots of system temperature menu allows to build plots of

Analysis of phase-cal

Normally each station has a phase calibrating system. Phase-cal phases and amplitudes for each channel for each scan are computed by a correlator and are written into the database. However, if manual phase calibration was applied during fringing then no information about measured phase-cal phase and phase-cal amplitudes remains in the database for this station. If some channel(s) was dropped during the final fringing then no information about phase-cal at that channel at that station remains in the database. Boxes for phase-cal plots for these channels will be empty.

Option (P) Plots of phase cal is invoked from the main Phase_Doctor menu (the menu which has a title Phase_Doctor, its version and the identifier of the database).

Plots of phase calmenu allows to build plots of

Phase clinic

Option (C) Phase clinic is invoked from the main Phase_Doctor menu. It allows to run some procedures for evaluation of phase and amplitude of spurious signals. Routines of computation of amplitudes and phases of spurious signals at the specific station run under the control of a so-called procedure file. Phase_doctor expects to find the procedure file in the $PHD_DIR directory. The name of the procedure file is <experiment_name>.prc , f.e. 00JAN10XH.prc . Syntax of procedure file is described below.

The main Phase clinic menu supports commands:

Format of a procedure file.

Procedure file describes operations to be performed under phases and amplitudes at the channels at all stations.

Procedure file consists of records of variable length. Each record consist of one or more words separated by one or more blanks. The first word is considered as a keyword, other words are considered as values of the that keyword. The order of records is fixed and cannot be changed. Empty lines and lines which start from symbols * are considered as comments and ignored.

Procedure file consist of a preamble, a session section and station sections. Each station section consists of channel subsections.

Preamble is the first line of the file, and it indicates that this file is a valid Phase_Doctor procedure file. The first symbols of the preamble should be a string "Phase_Doctor proc file".

Session section should precede any station sections. Supported keywords of the session section:

A station section defines modes of treatment of each station participated in the experiment. Phase_Doctor expects to find the station section for each station. Supported keywords of the station section: A channel subsection should follow a station name keyword. It defines actions appropriate for the specific channel at this station. Phase_Doctor expects to find the channel subsection for each station section for each channel. Supported keywords of the channel subsection:
Example of the valid procedure file.

Baseline clinic

Option (B) Baseline clinic is invoked from the main Phase_Doctor menu. It allows to display plots of residual fringe phases before and after applying a model of spurious signals, plots of contribution of spurious signals in phase and group delay.

The main Phase clinic menu supports commands:

Save delays update

Option (S) Save contributions to delay is invoked from the main Phase_Doctor menu. It allows to write down the contributions to delay which has been computed previously by Phase_Doctor in order to apply it solution.

It recognizes the following commands:

Customization

Phase_Doctor uses a
PGPLOT library of graphic utilities which in turn invokes XSERV or pgxwin driver. It requires a proper setting X-resources. You should add the following lines to the file ~/.Xdefaults if you use a big screen: 340x280mm pgxwin.Win.geometry: 1260x800+0+90 pgxwin.Win.maxColors: 69 pgxwin.Win.iconize: True or pgxwin.Win.geometry: 1000x680+0+90 pgxwin.Win.maxColors: 69 pgxwin.Win.iconize: True if you use a small screen: 300x230mm.

Then you have to activate the settings defined in ~/.Xdefaults by the command

xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults (NB: Environment variable DISPLAY should be set up properly before using xrdb). This operation should be done each time when you start a terminal session, therefore it is reasonable to put the call of xrdb in your customization file, namely ~/.vueprofile

1260x800+0+90 means that the window will have 1260 pixels width, 800 in height, 0 -- shift to the right respectively to the left edge of the screen, 90 pixels shift down respectively to the top edge of the screen. Parameters window width and window heights are ignored. Line "pgxwin.Win.iconize: True" means that PGPLOT window will be iconize and go out from the screen after termination of DiaGI. This resource is MANDATORY, otherwise DiaGI will require confirmation from the text screen when it terminates.

The following command should be run before the first call of pgxwin_server:

xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults NB: if pgxwin_server is running xrdb will be ignored! pgxwin_server should be stopped before execution xrdb command and then launched again. The following environment variable should be set up: Optionally environment the following environment variables can be set up:

Names of input and output files.

Notation:

Input files

Input files are listed here. Some files may not be used. Some files are can be used as output files also.

Output files

Output files are listed here. Files with extension .gif are binary files in GIF format, files with extension .ps are ASCII files in Postscript format, files with extension .txt are text ASCII files.

References

Dialogue Graphic Interface. DiaGI.
  1. DiaGI. User guide.
  2. DiaGI. Brief description of DiaGI commands.
  3. DiaGI. Verbose description of DiaGI commands.
  4. Multi_DiaGI. Description of Multi_DiaGI commands.
  5. Example of the procedure file.
Phase_Doctor was developed by Leonid Petrov.
This document was prepared by Leonid Petrov
Last update: 24-MAR-2000 17:01:25