RADIO ASTRONOMY AND MOONBOUNCE COMMUNICATIONS  

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TEMPO_calc PROGRAM DOWNLOAD

Below is a download link for a Windows utility that I wrote to keep track of the apparent pulse repetition rate of the pulsar of interest for the time/date and location of the radio telescope in real time.

The program has an option to continuously update the calculations however the user must ensure that the current time falls within the valid time range of the TEMPO-generated polynomial coefficients.  To ensure that is the case the time since running the TEMPO tz -z command should not have been more than 12 hours ago.  If it has, re-run tz -z in your TEMPO directory (see the instructions mentioned below) to refresh the polynomial coefficient calculations.   Note that the atuomatic-updating feature is not normally required to detect many pulsars and so the default condition for automatic updating is OFF.  Indeed, the synchronization frequency/period shown at the begining of the observation is usually sufficiently accurate for most amateur observations for many pulsars (i.e., several hours of continuous observation/signal averaging).

The TEMPO_calc utility makes use of an included subset program of the full TEMPO program used by many professional pulsar astronomers.  I have called the utility program TEMPO_calc.  The TEMPO_calc program, the necessary TEMPO components, and detailed instructions for their use are provided in a zipped folder and may be downloaded here:

TEMPO_calc_files zip-folder download

The zipped folder contains four items:

     i)      detailed setup instructions

     ii)      tempo folder, containing the necessary TEMPO routines and files

     iii)     TEMPO_calc_v1.3 executable file

     iv)     TEMPO_calc_v1.3 source code for those who are interested (MS Visual Studio 2013 Community solution)

The zipped folder contains everything that you need to run TEMPO_calc, which uses the polyco.dat file produced by the TEMPO program.  

As an example, the front panel display of the TEMPO_calc program is shown below displaying the calculated local synchronization frequency and period for pulsar PSR 0329+54 on 14 DEC 2018 at Espanola, NM, USA.  

The display shows the current synchroniztion frequency and period for the location and time as well as the polynomial coefficients that were used to calculate them and the Modified Julian Date for the current date/time.  As an option, you may "ENABLE UPDATING" to update the calculations at the rate selected, but for most amateur uses the synchronization frequency/period of the initial calculation will be adequate for a several-hour period.