• A.C. Butterworth, M. E. Angoletta, L. Arnaudon, P. Baudrenghien, J. Bento, T. Bohl, O. Brunner, E. Ciapala, F. Dubouchet, G. Hagmann, W. Höfle, T.P.R. Linnecar, P. Maesen, J.C. Molendijk, E. Montesinos, J. Noirjean, A.V. Pashnin, V. Rossi, J. Sanchez-Quesada, M. Schokker, E.N. Shaposhnikova, D. Stellfeld, J. Tuckmantel, D. Valuch, U. Wehrle, F. Weierud
  CERN, Geneva
• R. Sorokoletov
  JINR, Dubna, Moscow Region

Hardware commissioning of the LHC RF system was successfully completed in time for first beams in LHC in September 2008. All cavities ware conditioned to nominal field, power systems tested and all Low level synchronization systems, cavity controllers and beam control electronics were tested and calibrated. Beam was successfully captured in ring 2, cavities phased, and a number of initial measurements made. These results are presented and tests and preparation for colliding beams in 2009 are outlined.

• D. Van Winkle, J.D. Fox, T. Mastorides, C.H. Rivetta
  SLAC, Menlo Park, California
• P. Baudrenghien, A.C. Butterworth, J.C. Molendijk
  CERN, Geneva

Funding: Work supported through SLAC/DOE Contract DE-AC02-76-SF00515 and US LARP CERN collaboration.

The LHC Low Level RF System (LLRF) is a complex multi-VME crate system which is used to regulate the superconductive cavity gap voltage as well as to lower the impedance as seen by the beam through low latency feedback. This system contains multiple loops with several parameters which must be set before the loops can be closed. In this paper, we present a suite of matlab based tools developed to perform the preliminary alignment of the RF stations and the beginnings of the closed loop model based alignment routines. We briefly introduce the RF system and in particular the base band (time domain noised based) network analyzer system built into the LHC LLRF. The main focus of this paper is the methodology of the algorithms used in the routines within the context of the overall system. Measured results are presented which validate the technique. Because the RF systems are located underground in a location which is relatively un-accessible even without beam and completely un-accessible when beam is present, these tools will allow CERN LLRF experts to maintain and tune their LLRF systems from a remote location similar to what was done very successfully in PEP-II at SLAC.