Commissioning of the SPPS linac bunch compressor

First results and beam measurements are presented for the recently installed linac bunch compressor chicane. The new bunch compressor produces ultra-short electron bunches for the Sub-Picosecond Photon Source (SPPS) and for test beams such as the E164 Plasma Wakefield experiment. This paper will give an overview of the first experiences with tuning and optimizing the compressor together with a description of the beam diagnostics and beam measurements. These measurements form the basis for further detailed study of emittance growth effects such as CSR and wakefields in a previously unmeasured regime of ultra-short bunch lengths.