ROACH2 Signal Levelling
The power input to the ROACH2s can be controlled by the Raspberry Pi integrated in to the gain box. A feedback on the power levels are only possible by consulting the output of the ROACH2 ADCs (either ADC histograms or the output of the PFB-FFT). This of course will only be possible if the ROACH2 FPGA is programmed appropriately, or configured with the right gateware.
- connect to the VNC session asterix:4 (use CrabPulsar to connect).
- load a firmware that has some ADC interfaces. eg.
python /home/pulsar/roach2/NewFirmware/r3xsetup_new.py
- start the ADC displays now:
python /home/pulsar/roach2/NewFirmware/r3xadchist_new.py
- Now change the attenuator setting from another terminal:
roach2attn <id> <atten>
, where id is 1,2,3 or 4, and attenuation is in the range of 0.5-30.5 dB in steps of 0.5. See example in the screen shot below. - Consult the setting on the histogram above - aim to get the signal between -50 to +50. You should see something similar to the plot in the image below.
- For Galactic Centre magnetar observations, current settings are: 18.5/15.5/12.5/6.5 dB
- For normal pulsar observations: 9.5/7.5/6.5/2.5
- Refer to the image below for an example display.