These pages describe the Antenna programming interface.

They define the function calls which will be available to the array control computer, and thus to anyone accessing the antenna subsystems through the control system software.

Some notes on organization of the interface:

The antenna interface is divided into conceptually distinct subsystems.For instance all functions associated with control of receiver amplifiers are part of the FrontEndControl subsystem. Functions which control telescope optics to select a given receiver are part of the OpticsControl subsystem.

The FrontEndControl and OpticsControl subsystems are in turn part of the receiver subsystem, RxControl, and the RxControl subsystem and DriveControl subsystem are independent interfaces published with the nameserver.

Some notes on reading the documentation:

In the html version of this documentation, just click on "Compound List" in the left panel, then work your way through whatever subsystem is of interest to you. The various subsystem interfaces are identified by "Control", and most are pretty self-explanatory, as indicated above. Eventually you'll get down to the actual function calls, with plain text descriptions.

Function calls are designed to be independent of different antennas and receiver types. For instance the FrontEndControl interface is intended to serve equally as the control interface for the amplifiers of a 1cm, 1mm or 3mm receiver on an OVRO, BIMA or SZA antenna; thus you will find generic functions like setVG() for setting a gate voltage, and not set1cmVG(), set1mmVG(), etc. When a function has no applicability to a particular receiver type (for instance setSISj() to set an SIS junction voltage when the receiver type is 1cm), that function will exist but simply do nothing.

There are currently certain interfaces which contain no function calls directly relevant to hardware control, but simply provide a way of enumerating things like receiver types, polarization states and stow positions. For instance, the RxStageControl interface is simply a means of identifying the receiver type (1cm, 1mm or 3mm). These interfaces are identified as enumerators in the short listing when you click on "Compound List" in the html documentation. Hardware types can mostly ignore these, but should however look them over to make sure there are no obvious cases which are missing.

Lastly, some unresolved issues for which input from hardware people would be useful are identified in the Todo List, which you can get to by clicking on the "Related Pages" link in the html documentation.