A VOLUME-LIMITED SAMPLE OF IRAS GALAXIES TO 4000-KM-S(-1) .2. NEUTRALHYDROGEN OBSERVATIONS FROM THE PARKES TELESCOPE

We have extracted a volume-limited sample of spiral galaxies within 40 00 km s(-1) from the Strauss et al. [ApJS, 83, 29 (1992)] redshift sur vey of IRAS galaxies. The purpose of the sample is to use distances ob tained from the neutral hydrogen/near-infrared (I-band) Tully-Fisher r elation to study deviations from uniform Hubble expansion. This will a llow us to estimate the distribution of mass in the local universe and to place constraints on the value of the cosmological density paramet er, Omega(0). Here we report neutral hydrogen (H I) observations of 61 galaxies from this sample taken at the 64 m Parkes telescope, 48 of w hich resulted in measured linewidth parameters. Empirical estimates of random and systematic errors in H I line widths at low signal-to-nois e ratio are described.