# PAKO— Introduction and Overview

After this introduction follows section 2, a “Guide for the Perplexed”. Here we briefly explain some general features of PAKO as well as differences from the previous control system for the 30-M Telescope.

In Section 3 we give a very short recipe with the bare minimum to get started with Heterodyne observations.

Section , is “PaKo's Cook Book”. It is meant to evolve into a gentle step-by-step and command-by-command explanation of how to do observations with the NCS.

Next is the “NCS User's Guide”, , which follows the same outline as the “Cook Book”, but includes more details. The examples included here are all in the form of PAKO command language scripts.

The section “NCS Explained”, 6, contains detailed explanations of some aspects of the NCS.

Finally, the “PAKO Language Internal Help” is reproduced in section 7.

A lot of information is intentionally duplicated in different sections of this manual, so that, e.g., the “Cook Book” and the “User's Guide” can be read independently. It should not be necessary to read all sections in this manual! Also much space is taken up by examples, so the actual text to read is not very long!

We recommend that all users who face the NCS for the first time should read the “Guide for the Perplexed”. Beginning observers and those who like to set up their observations one command at a time can then follow the “Cook Book”, section .

More experienced observers may prefer the “User's Guide”, section , especially those who need more advanced options and those who like to prepare scripts with the specifications of their observations (recommended!).

All users may want to consult the section 6 “NCS explained” for general information, or look up details in the HELP section, 7, which is a complete reference for all commands and options.

Before starting observations, users should also review the up-to-date notes on the NCS wiki pages at:
NCS Wiki at https://mrt-lx1.iram.es/mainWiki/FrontPage https://mrt-lx1.iram.es/mainWiki/FrontPage