Table of contents
Station Monitoring
Monitoring of the station environment and the status of the LCU can be found at: https://lofarx.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/cacti/graph_view.php?action=tree&tree_id=1
Hardware Status as of 4. June 2013
Electronics:
All RCU modules plugged in.
High Band Antennas:
All tiles are working.
In tile 54 (RCUs 108/109) the element 9 is not communicating.
In tile 9 (RCUs 18,19) the element 16 shows strange features in the spectrum even though it has been recently replaced.
Low Band Antennas:
A number of LBAs show too little power, two show too high power (especially at low frequencies). This needs to be addressed at the next maintenance session.
Some (even-numbered) dipoles show little to no power in the spectrum (like as if the LNA is not working). The problem is not always consistent: some seem to recover without active intervention, some seem to recover after pulling and re-connecting the RCU.
| Date | RCUs with low power in rcumode 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance 16.10.2012 | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * |
| Wed 1.02.2012 | 684 | 724 | 78 | 1044 | 1304 | 138 | 1482 | 150 | 1524 | 1784 | |||||||||
| Wed 18.01.2012 | * | * | * | 72 | 78 | 130 | 138 | 148 | 150 | 152 | 178 | ||||||||
| Wed 21.9.2011 | 8 | 12 | * | 542 | 68 | 72 | 78 | 82 | * | 130 | 1381 | 148 | 150 | 1521 | 164 | 178 | |||
| Thu 11.8.2011 | 8 | 12 | 44 | 54 | 72 | 78 | 82 | 86 | 130 | 1381 | 148 | 150 | 1521 | 164 | 178 | ||||
| Fri. 8.7.2011A | 8 | 12 | 44 | 68 | 72 | 743 | 78 | 82 | 86 | 130 | 148 | 150 | 1522 | 164 | 178 | ||||
| Mon 4.7.2011 | 8 | 12 | 44 | 72 | 741 | 78 | 822 | 86 | 130 | 148 | 150 | 164 | 178 | ||||||
| Fri 1.7.2011A | 8 | 12 | 44 | 68 | 72 | 78 | 86 | 130 | 148 | 150 | 164 | 178 | |||||||
| Wed 29.6.2011A | 8 | 44 | 72 | 78 | 86 | 92 | 138 | 148 | 150 | 164 | |||||||||
Notes:
A No attempt to recover signal by switching rcumodes done.
1Recovered after switching to rcumode 1 and back (a number of times)
2Showed changing power levels.
3 At 50-50 MHz about 10-15 dB reduced at 20 MHz about 30 dB reduced.
4 Normal power at some times, reduced power at others
* Replaced during maintenance visit, or before
Computer Status as of 4. June 2013:
Data Taking PCs
All lofarAN machines have new RAID disks configured ad RAID5 (12.7 TB storage space in total per machine).
The lofar BN machines have their disks in a RAID0 configuration, with the system as part of the RAID0.
Right now (4. June 2013) lofarB1 is offline due to a broken disk.
Server
lofarsrv is up
List of spares as of 4. June 2013:
| Description | Quantity (Note) |
|---|---|
| spare disks (2TB) | 7 |
| RCU - Modules | 8 + 1 with broken LBH connector (used for demonstrations) |
| HBA FE - Modules | 0 |
| HBA Summators | 1 (communication, without voltage regulator) |
| "good, old style" LBA heads | 8 |
| good, new-style LBA heads | 0 |
| "LBA, HBA mechanics goodie bag" | 1 |
| 4 GByte TBB Memory modules | 4 (spare, surpuls ???) |
| 2 GByte TBB Memory modules (old modules) | 48 (DDR 2, 667, CL5, ECC, Reg) |
Important or Interesting Webpages
- The effelsberg station monitoring page: https://lofarx.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/cacti/graph_view.php
- The page of the Barix device in the container: http://lofar-brix.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/
- The LOFAR Wiki: http://www.lofar.org/wiki/doku.php?id=start
Needs a login to see anything. If simply registering is not enough, contact Arno Schoenmakers for more access.- Single station use at the LOFAR Wiki: http://www.lofar.org/wiki/doku.php?id=singlestation:start
With quite a bit of information on dealing with a station, but rather unstructured. - Technical operations contacts at the LOFAR Wiki: http://www.lofar.org/wiki/doku.php?id=operator:ilt_to_contacts
- Single station use at the LOFAR Wiki: http://www.lofar.org/wiki/doku.php?id=singlestation:start
- The international LOFAR schedule: http://www.astron.nl/lofar-schedule/schedule/schedule.php
(Stations not scheduled for an ILT observations are usually free for local observations)
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