CARMA

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    1. 1. Coherence Test

    Version as of 17:05, 18 Apr 2025

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    CARMA provides 2 VLBI stations:
    • 8 antennas are phased together in a set of beamformers and recorded on one Mk6 recorder. 
    • a separate 'reference' antenna is connected to a standard BDC and R2DBE and is recorded on a separate Mk6 recorder.
     
    The exact LO1 frequency for the 2015 experiment is:
    f(LO1) = 3 * (7 * (9 * fsynth - 10 MHz) + 50 MHz)
           = 221099.999970 MHz (for fsynth = 1170.158730 MHz)

    A diagram of the CARMA IF system is shown below.  The signals for the reference antenna are taken from wideband directional couplers in the fiber IF receiver boxes; these 1-9 GHz bands are sent to standard EHT block downconvertes and R2DBEs.  The signals for the beamformers are taken from the outputs of the CARMA analog downconverters.

    CARMA-IFdiagram.png

    The beamformers are channelized as shown below (same as 2013):

    DEBlayout.png

    The sky frequencies corresponding to these channels are shown in the diagram below ("caseD") ;

    caseD.png

     

    Coherence Test

    We injected a 215.2 GHz tone into receiver on one antenna, derived from a separate synthesizer (HP 8662), locked to a separate 5 MHz output from the maser.  We used a tone in the receiver's lower sideband because the harmonic generator seemed to work best at that frequency - to test coherence, the sideband shouldn't matter.  The tone appeared at 650 MHz on output of CARMA downconverter.  We mixed this down to 10 MHz in another mixer, using a 660 MHz LO from another synthesizer, again locked separately to one of the 5 MHz maser outputs.  We examined this on a scope that was tirggered off the 10 MHz output of the final synthesizer.  A block diagram of the setup is shown below.  Shaded blocks indicate hardware associated with the test tone.  Note that the Mixed this down to 10 MHz, examined with scope, triggering off 10 MHz (derived directly from maser).  Block diagram of the setup is shown below.  Shaded blocks indicate hardware associated with the test tone.  Note that the tone is independent of the CARMA LO system, apart from the 10 MHz offset needed for the tone's Xband phaselock in the antenna - this was taken from the regular antenna 10 MHz distribution.

    CoherenceCheck.png

    Here is a video of the tone - we change the scope averaging from 1 to 2 to 8 to 64 during the course of the recording.  There is a small amplitude glitch about every 1 sec - not clear what this is due to, but should not have big impact on vlbi.

    TestTone.mp4

     

    An overview diagram similar to previous years.

    EHT2015-carma-blockdiagram.png

     

    DSC00447-001.JPG


     
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