This notice announces the final release of NRAO-DiFX version 1.1 on 
September 3, 2008.

I have created tar.gz source distributions and some documentation for 
NRAO-DiFX 1.1.  These files can all be found at 
http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~wbrisken/NRAO-DiFX-1.1/ .  The subversion 
repositories for all needed components have branches called NRAO-DiFX-1.1 .  
I intend to keep this version stable while development continues on the 
trunk branch of each component.  Please read NRAO-DiFX-UserGuide.pdf for 
installation and usage details.  Also report any bugs or documentation 
errors to me.

Remember that there are some terms of use for mpifxcorr, the core of the 
DiFX correlator.  Please make sure to understand these before use:
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~adeller/software/difx/license.pdf

What is new in NRAO-DiFX 1.1?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Compared to NRAO-DiFX 1.0:

* Blanking of data replaced by headers (MarkIV format only)
* Proper data weights
* Initial Mark5B support
* Support for oversampled data through time-domain decimation
* Multicast status information for GUI interface
* Correlation of moving and near field objects
* Concatenation of multiple output files into a single or multiple FITS-IDI file(s)
* Better support for jobs with multiple configuration tables
* Playback off Mark5 modules with missing disks
* Support for Amazon based Mark5 units 
* Completely replaced the "Makefile" system with better integrated alternative
* Generation of delay model polynomials rather than tables, more like VLBA HW correlator
* uvw values are derived from the delay model (and hence include corrections for aberration, near field observations, and other subtle effects) and are evaluated when writing the FITS file
* NRAO-DiFX version accountability
* Validation of data frames prior to decoding
* Data evaluation "sniffing" optionally built into FITS converter
* New .input file format

What is NRAO-DiFX? 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
DiFX is a great general purpose software correlator.  NRAO-DiFX attempts 
to make DiFX very easy to use within the NRAO/VLBA infrastructure.  This 
includes generation of input files from VLBA job scripts, parsing of 
monitor calibration data, and production of FITS-IDI format files.  Many 
of these utilities are useful for non-VLBA correlation as well (such as 
model generation and FITS conversion).  As the VLBA transitions to vex in 
future versions the similarities with other correlator environments will 
only increase.

The document NRAO-DiFX-UserGuide.pdf contained at the web address above 
desribes installation off the subversion repository.  If you do not have 
access to the subversion repository you can get the .tar.gz files from the 
above web address.  The installation procedure will be a bit different for 
these files; you should start at the ./configure step for each package.

I will make some attempts to provide support for official releases (such 
as this) of my software.  Please try to make my life easier by making 
available reasonable-sized relevant files when requesting assistance.

Enjoy,

Walter