We present observations of HCO+ 1–0 absorption lines toward two extragalactic compact radio sources, NRAO 150 and BL Lac with the Korean VLBI Network in order to investigate their time variation over 20 years by Galactic foreground clouds. It is found that the line shape of –17 km s−1 component changed marginally during 1993–1998 period and has remained unaltered thereafter for NRAO 150. Its behavior is different from that of H2CO 110–111, suggesting chemical differentiation on ∼ 20 AU scale, the smallest ever seen. On the other hand, BL Lac exhibits little temporal variation for the HCO+ and H2CO lines. Our observation also suggests that Korea VLBI Network performs reliably in the spectrum mode in that the shapes of the new HCO+ 1–0 spectra are in good agreement with the previous ones to an accuracy of a few percent except the time varying component toward NRAO 150.

The calibration of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data has long been a time consuming process. The Korean VLBI Network (KVN) is a simple array consisting of three identical antennas. Because four frequencies are observed simultaneously, phase solutions can be transferred from lower frequencies to higher frequencies in order to improve phase coherence and hence sensitivity at higher frequencies. Due to the homogeneous nature of the array, the KVN is also well suited for automatic calibration. In this paper we describe the automatic calibration of single-polarisation KVN data using the KVN Pipeline and comparing the results against VLBI data that has been manually reduced. We nd that the pipelined data using phase transfer produces better results than a manually reduced dataset not using the phase transfer. Additionally we compared the pipeline results with a manually reduced phase-transferred dataset and found the results to be identical.

Simultaneous time monitoring observations of H2O and SiO maser lines were performed toward the D-type symbiotic binary system V407 Cyg with the Korean VLBI Network single dish radio telescope. These monitoring observations were carried out from March 2, 2010 (optical phase  = 0.0), 8 days before the nova outburst on March 10, 2010 to June 5, 2014 ( = 2.13). Eight days before the nova outburst, we detected the SiO v = 1, 2, J = 1–0 maser lines which exhibited values of 0.51 K ( 6.70 Jy) and 0.71 K ( 9.30 Jy), respectively, while after the outburst we could not detect them on April 2 ( = 0.04), May 5 ( = 0.09), May 8 ( = 0.09), or on June 5, 2010 ( = 0.13) within the upper limits of our KVN observations. After restarting our monitoring observations, we detected SiO v = 2, J = 1–0 masers starting on October 20, 2011 ( = 0.83) and detected SiO v = 1, J = 1–0 masers starting on December 22, 2011 ( = 0.92). These results provide clear evidence of the interaction between the shock from the nova outburst and the SiO maser regions of the Mira envelope. The peak emission of SiO v = 1, 2, J = 1–0 masers always occurred at blueshifted velocities with respect to the stellar velocity except for that of SiO v = 1 at one epoch. These phenomena may be related to the redistribution of SiO maser regions after the outburst. The peak velocity variations of SiO masers associated with stellar pulsation phases show an increasing blueshifted trend during our monitoring interval after the outburst.

We report the development of solar flux receivers operating at 2.8 GHz to monitor solar radio activity. Radio waves from the sun are amplified, filtered, and then transmitted to a power meter sensor without frequency down-conversion. To measure solar flux, a calibration scheme is designed with a noise source, an ambient load, and a hot load at 100℃. The receiver is attached to a 1.8 m parabolic antenna in Icheon, owned by National Radio Research Agency, and observation is being conducted during day time on a daily basis. We compare the solar fluxes measured for last seven months with solar fluxes obtained by DRAO in Penticton, Canada, and by the Hiraiso solar observatory in Japan, and finally establish equations to convert observed flux to the so-called Penticton flux with an accuracy better than 3.2 sfu.