DSPSR user documentation: dspsr

Downloading and processing some example data

You can download some input data files from http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/pulsar/data The file 1644-4559.cpsr2 is an 8.3 second baseband recording of J1644-4559 made at Parkes using a 64-MHz band centred at 1405 MHz.

To process this file, you'll need to compile dspsr with the string cpsr2 included in the backends.list file.

The 1644-4559.eph text file contains the pulsar ephemeris and 1644-4559.polyco contains the tempo polynomial coefficients to be used during folding. To create a 128-channel filterbank, perform phase-coherent dispersion removal, detect and fold the signal, run 

dspsr -F 128:D -E 1644-4559.eph -P 1644-4559.polyco 1644-4559.cpsr2
You may not necessarily need to use the -E or -P options; dspsr can generate the ephemeris using psrcat and the polyco using tempo. Use these options if you don't already have these programs installed/working. The output should be a file named m2007-05-18-15:57:21.ar, which can be viewed using 
psrplot -pG -jp m2007-05-18-15:57:21.ar
This will show a phase-vs-frequency image of the pulsed intensity, with the power from both X and Y polarizations added together.