• • Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (AstridOptimizations?)

• • Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (AstridOptimizations)

We supported 18 proposals in 27 sessions. The telescope was scheduled for 16.25 hrs of maintenance, 1.3 hrs of receiver checkouts, and 8 hrs of Ka-band/Mustang commissioning.

We had a fair number of small problems this week plus three that cost us a fair amount of time. In all, 9.6 hrs were lost (6.3% of the time for observing and tests). Five operat0r shifts had no problems. The major causes of lost time were:

• Antenna Actuator Control : 3.8 hrs
• Q-Band cryogenics : 2.2 hrs
• Observer No-Show : 1.2 hrs
• Winds (2 instances) : 0.7 hrs
• Atrid LPC transfers (8 instances) : 0.4 hrs
• Astrid/GFM non LPC problems (4 instances) : 0.3 hrs
• Extended Maintenance : 0.3 hrs
• Others (LO1 Router, VNC, Spectrometer, Spectral Processor, GASP) : 0.6 hrs

Some of the LPC/Astrid problems were not software but attempts to point under severe RFI or weather conditions.

Split one night this week between Ka and Mustang commissioning. We have 1/2 night of Ka-band to go (Tcals and bandscan). Roger provided Frank wil a modified algorithm for setting LO1B and LO2 so that all frequencies in Ka-band can be observed. We're still working on finding a good calibration/baseline algorithm. Since Q-band cryogenics problems seem to have been worked out, we will start Q-band commissioning this week. Mustang will come down this week and C-band will be reinstalled.

Commissioning Summary & Milestones: Sept 1 - Dec 31:

• Every month : Pointing -- 1 night/month except in November, A/B weather, dynamically scheduled.
• Week of Sep 4 : C-band off telescope
• Week of Sep 11: Penn Array on telescope in C-band slot
• Sept 11 - Oct 27 : Penn Array commissioning -- 1 night/week, A-weather, dynamically scheduled. 8 nights max.
• Sept : Ka-band, Q-band, Zpectrometer lab tests
• Week of Oct 2 - week of Oct 12 : Penn Array backup daytime engineering time : 4 day-times max.
• On or before week of Oct. 9 : Ka-band placed on telescope
• Oct 16 - Nov 13: Ka-band spectral-line commissioning -- 1 night/week, A-weather, dynamically scheduled. 3 nights max.
• Oct 16 - Nov 13: CCB quick checkout (2-3 hours), time permitting.
• Week of Oct. 23 (earlier if it's practical and if the astronomy schedule has no conflicts): Ku-band down, X-band moved to where Ku-band was, Zpectrometer on telescope where X was
• On or before week of Oct. 30 : Q-band on telescope
• Oct 31 : Fixed maintenance day for Zpectrometer checkout
• No later than week of Nov. 6 : Penn Array down, C-band up in its place.
• Nov 6 - Dec 14 : Q-band commissioning -- 1 night/week, A-weather, dynamically scheduled. 3 nights max.
• Nov 13 - Dec 1 : Ka-band CCB continuum commissioning and Ka-band Zpectrometer testing -- Sharing four dynamically scheduled, daytime/evening sessions (~noon to ~midnight) for A/B weather. Zpectrometer will have up to ~ 25 hrs, CCB the remaining ~ 15 hrs.
• After Dec. 1 : Ka-band observations can commence, preference given to low-risk continuum projects.
• No later than week of Dec. 4 : Zpectrometer down, Ku-band up where Zpec was.
• Dec. 11 - Dec. 21 : PTCS OOF Tests -- A-weather, dynamically scheduled, 2 nights max.
• After Dec. 15 : Q-band observations can commence.

Receiver Installation Schedules

• C-band, Remove: week of Sep 4 , Install: no later than week of November 7
• Penn Array, Install: week of Sep 11 , Remove: no later than week of Oct 31
• Ka-band, Install: on or before the week of Oct 9
• Zpectrometer Install: week of Oct 23 ; Remove: no later than week of Dec 4
• Ku Remove: on or before week of Oct 23 ; Install: no later than week of Dec 4
• X-band moved to Ku-band slot: on or before week of Oct 23
• Q-band, Install: on or before the week of Oct 30

• Held meeting with Ron G., Frank, others to discuss results of Ron's comparison between the "old" (glish) and prototype "new" (python) pointing fitting. Agreed that Ron was on the right track. Discussed "big picture" plans for continued pointing work.
• Started planning for the visit by the Goddard phase retrieval guys to discuss their approach to OOF holography.

This ends the 6th full week of 6 in the seventh development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC72006. We are scheduled to release mid-February 2007. Items deemed ready for release before that time will be patched in after they have been fully tested.

Operational support was relatively light this week and included:

• Engineers reported that the Q-band Manager couldn't communicate with the hardware. They cycled some power supplies and fixed the problem themselves.
• Operator reported error message from LO1 Router. Turned Manager off and back on. This cleared the message. The message was probably generated as a result of maintenance activities earlier in the day.
• Added an observer to the observation management database.
• Had to restart the online sdfits filler.

Modification Requests:

• MRs ready for integration/regression testing:
  • None
• MRs ready for sponsor testing:
  • None
• MRs under development
  • Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (AstridOptimizations?)
  • Develop New Pointing Pre-Processing Application (ModificationRequest5C706)
    • Now that PTCSPN52 is complete and briefed, resumed work on refactoring configuration file functionality as prelude to refactoring pointing functionality.
  • GFM/Turtle Upgrade - Remove use of LPCs.conf file (ModificationRequest4C706)
• MRs under CCC review:
  • Modify SDFITS and aips++ to correctly process Spectrometer cross-polarization data (ModificationRequest2C706)
  • SDFits Changes - Add target position and HIGH_CAL keywords to sdfits and other requested sdfits changes (ModificationRequest3C706)
  • GBTIDL Changes necessary in support of related sdfits tool changes (ModificationRequest8C706)
  • Change scaling for the Autocorrelation Spectra in the Spectrometer (ModificationRequest6C706)
  • Change GO fits file so that RA is in degrees (ModificationRequest15C705)
  • Add Two New ScanTypes: FivePoint and Circle (ModificationRequest1C706)
• MRs being written:
• Other Activities:
  • Dynamic Scheduling - Generated test cases from GBT06A semester from Carls MySQL proposal and vprog tables. Some of the required data is still missing and other data needs to be massaged, but overall it is promising.
  • Balancing Project - During this week's Observing Issues Meeting the support scientists decided to go with the Python implementation. MRs will be updated during next cycle and implementation is expected in C1 of 2007.
  • Zpectrometer Support - Assisted in testing on the installed Zpectrometer this week.
  • PTCS Support - Revising Project Note PTCSPN52 based on recommendations from FrankGhigo to include more quantitative comparisons.
  • SchedulingSoftware - MikeMcCarty attended a Dynamic Scheduling meeting to gather input on additional questions that need to be addressed, see SchedulingSoftware for details.
  • Penn Array Support - Looked into issues with housekeeping software.
  • Zpectrometer Commissioning Support - We resolved many issues discovered during last week's maintenance checkout.

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT05C-051, GBT06A-065, GBT06B-043, 
   GBT06C-032, GBT06C-021, GBT05B-011, 
   GBT06C-011, GBT06C-055, GBT06C-045, 
   GBT02A-054, GBT06C-012, GBT06A-014, 
   GBT06A-026, GBT06C-035, GBT06C-003, 
   GBT06C-037, GBT06C-103, GBT06C-016, 
   GBT06C-039, GBT06C-018, BM251     

Completed proposals
   GBT06A-065, GBT06C-103, BM251

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT06C-051 [FP ] Lincoln Greenhill
       Monitoring 2 NGC4258-like Masers: Measurement of  
       Distances / Constraint of LCDM                    
  GBT06C-052 [  B] Scott Ransom
       Continued Timing of the Binary and Millisecond    
       Pulsars in NGC6440 and NGC6441                    
  GBT06B-032 [F  ] Steve Begin
       Timing of the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in   
       M28                                               
  GBT06B-055 [  B] Nissim Kanekar
       Confirming a new HI 21cm absorber at intermediate 
       redshift                                          
  GBT06B-033 [F  ] Jason Hessels
       Completing a 350-MHz Survey of the Galactic Plane 
       for Pulsars and Transients                        
  GBT06B-044 [F B] Robert Ferdman
       Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the    
       Parkes Multibeam Survey                           
  GBT06A-056 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
       Are there Unrecognized NGC4258-like Systems Among 
       Known Water Masers in AGN?                        
  GBT06C-032 [F B] Peter Martin
       The Galactic foreground at the North Ecliptic Pole
  GBT06C-021 [F  ] Erik Rosolowsky
       A COMPLETE Census of Dense Cores in Perseus       
  GBT06C-011 [  B] Steve Curran
       A Pure Molecular Cloud at z~0.13?                 
  GBT06C-012 [  B] Steve Curran
       A Wide-Band Search of the Source of the           
       Obscuration of Reddened Quasars                   
  GBT06C-045 [ P ] David Champion
       A Search for Radio Emission from Magnetars after  
       Outburst                                          
  GBT05C-023 [  B] Fernando Camilo
       PSR J1833-1034, the Very Young Pulsar in the SNR  
       G21.5-0.9                                         
  GBT06C-035 [FP ] Jim Braatz
       The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O 
       Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs                          
  GBT06C-037 [ P ] Charlie Lada
       Probing the Origin of Dense Cores and the Stellar 
       IMF                                               
  GBT06C-038 [  B] Jay Lockman
       GBT Mapping of HI Clouds in the Disk-Halo         
       Interface                                         
  GBT06C-049 [  B] Karen Masters
       Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS  
  GBT06B-018 [F B] Michael Kramer
       Timing and General Relativity in the Double       
       Pulsar System                                     
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 11/23/2006 - 12/07/2006
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GC028      John Conway        X     jconway@oso.chalmers.se []
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill  K     greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-053 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-051 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest      L     demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-042 Nissim Kanekar     3     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
BB209      Edward Boyce       C     eboyce@mit.edueboyce@nrao.edu []
GBT06C-032 Peter Martin       L     pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06B-011 David Champion     3     champion@physics.mcgill.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-014 Andrea Tarchi      K     a.tarchi@ira.inaf.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-045 David Champion     S     champion@physics.mcgill.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-036 Jim Jackson        K     jackson@bu.edu [Dana Balser]
BB228      Michael Bietenholz X     mbieten@yorku.ca []
GBT06C-013 Steve Curran       3     sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06C-035 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06B-014 Paulo Freire       3     pfreire@naic.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-025 Amanda Kepley      X     kepley@astro.wisc.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT04B-014 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-037 Charlie Lada       K     clada@cfa.harvard.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-038 Jay Lockman        L     jlockman@nrao.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-016 Fernando Camilo    3     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-049 Karen Masters      L     kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-039 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06B-018 Michael Kramer     3     mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-019 Toney Minter       L     tminter@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-019 Satoshi Yamamoto   K     yamamoto@phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp [Larry Morgan]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> November  December  January   
    Astronomy ~  477 [290] 549 [343] 567 [345] 
  Maintenance ~   59 [017]  52 [034]  55 [068] 
  Test & Comm ~  148 [012]  91 [021]  44 [012] 
     Shutdown ~   36        36         0       
  Un-assigned ~    2        20        86       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 0
          On Hold - 16
         Schedule - 68
        Completed - 572


Current backlog [hours prior to 06C*] = 918
   [2001:2(1), 2002:0(4), 2003:19(1), 2004:107(21), 2005:469(23), 2006:321(17)]
   Backlog excluding 162 hrs of monitoring projects after 06C = 756
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2486
   Includes 250 hours of monitoring after trimester 06C
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06C

• Normal Spacecraft tracking 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM this week.
• Reviewing requirements for 20m tracking for MIT/LL
• Presented options for VSOP-2 tracking using 20m/43m
• Likely the MIT/LL group will bring their dewar week of Nov 27
• New purchase order is in place through June 07, with extension through Sept 08.
• Test lunar neutrino experiment with Rich Bradley this weekend.

PTCS Project -- John/Richard

Engineering

• Servo work
  • Working on model of Az axis, including structure and servo
  • Chasing down 0.28 Hz servo resonance
  • Starting work on demonstration of new digital velocity servo loop
• Surface measurements
  • Scrubbed panel-panel measurements for this week.
• Laser Rangefinder
  • Working on shielding the various parts of the LRF from each other to decrease noise in the system.

Astronomy, Pointing, Etc

No meeting held (this was a vacation day), but this page records the events of the week....

%META:TOPICINFO{author="RichardPrestage" date="1162415779" format="1.0" version="1.1"}% %META:TOPICPARENT{name="CommissioningMeetings"}%

GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

10 Nov 2006

AGENDA

• Upcoming Activities -- Carl
• Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob
• Observing News -- Ron
• Scheduling Status -- Carl
• Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger
  • Operations
  • Development
• Digital Electronics Status -- Randy
  • Operations, Problem Summary
  • Development
  • Plans
• Software Status -- Amy
• Pulsar Related -- Scott
• MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
• Commissioning Plans -- Ron
• Any other Business

Upcoming Activities -- Carl

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

Observing News -- Ron

Scheduling Status -- Carl

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

Operations

Development

Digital Electronics Status -- Randy

Operations, Problem Summary

Development

Plans

Software Status -- Amy

Pulsar Related -- Scott

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Commissioning Plans -- Ron

Any other Business

-- RichardPrestage - 01 Nov 2006