A CARMA First-light Correlator Plan 

A.J. Beasley, D.P. Woody, D.W. Hawkins

   4 February 2002 Version 2.

In this document we outline a plan for CARMA correlator development
over the next four years, derived from discussions at the f2f meeting
in December and subsequent Hardware/Science working group
discussions.  During these meetings scientific and operational
requirements for the correlator were addressed, and the following
critical assumption was agreed upon: that the first-light CARMA
correlator does not need to be a 23-station system. Including the SZA
in CARMA results in 23 antennas on site, however initial analysis by
Mel Wright has shown that cross-correlating the eight 3.5m SZA
antennas does not generally enhance the imaging capability of the
instrument (except in certain circumstances). Therefore, the
additional costs of building a 23- station correlator are not
warranted. Implementing a 15-stn correlator with user flexibility to
select which antennas are routed to the correlator inputs is the
preferred approach.