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 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.7 - 11 Oct 2006 - CarlBignell)
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Last Week
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Observations for proposals
   GBT06A-054, GBT06C-053, GBT06C-032,
   GBT06C-021, GBT05C-042, BU031     ,
   GBT06A-014, GBT06B-047, GBT06B-015,
   GBT06C-048, GBT05C-037, GBT06C-049,
   GBT06C-039, GBT06C-018, GBT06B-019

Completed proposals
   GBT05C-042, BU031, GBT06B-047,
   GBT05C-037

Next Week
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Observations scheduled for **
  GBT06C-051 [ P ] Lincoln Greenhill
       Monitoring 2 NGC4258-like Masers: Measurement of
       Distances / Constraint of LCDM
  GBT06A-053 [  B] Scott Ransom
       Continued Timing of the Binary and Millisecond
       Pulsars in Terzan 5
  GBT06C-053 [  B] Martin Zwaan
       A search for molecules in CaII absorbers
  GBT06C-021 [ P ] Erik Rosolowsky
       A COMPLETE Census of Dense Cores in Perseus
  GBT06C-032 [F B] Peter Martin
       The Galactic foreground at the North Ecliptic Pole
  GBT04C-031 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
       Monitoring of Five NGC4258-like Water Megamasers
       Discovered with the GBT and the DSN
  GBT06C-035 [FP ] Jim Braatz
       The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O
       Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs
  GBT06B-037 [F  ] Joel Weisberg
       Probing the Small-Scale Structure of Molecular
       Gas with Pulsar B1641-45
  GBT06C-036 [ P ] Claudia Cyganowski
       Radio mapping of infrared interstellar bubbles
  GBT06C-048 [  B] Nissim Kanekar
       HI 21cm absorption in strong MgII and CI
       absorbers in the redshift desert
  GBT06C-037 [ P ] Charlie Lada
       Probing the Origin of Dense Cores and the Stellar
       IMF
  GBT06C-049 [  B] Karen Masters
       Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS
  GBT06C-018 [F B] Ingrid Stairs
       Continued timing of a highly relativistic binary
       pulsar system
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 10/19/2006 - 11/02/2006
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest      8     demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-065 Rachel Friesen     K     rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06B-042 Nissim Kanekar     4     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-021 Erik Rosolowsky    K     erosolow@cfa.harvard.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06B-044 Robert Ferdman     L     ferdman@phas.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-032 Peter Martin       L     pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-055 Martin Zwaan       6     mzwaan@eso.org [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-011 Steve Curran       L     sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06A-014 Andrea Tarchi      K     a.tarchi@ira.inaf.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-023 Bruce Campbell     4     campbellb@si.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-012 Steve Curran       L     sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06C-035 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-036 Claudia Cyganowski K     ccyganow@astro.wisc.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06B-037 Joel Weisberg      L     jweisber@carleton.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-037 Charlie Lada       K     clada@cfa.harvard.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-048 Nissim Kanekar     4     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-027 Walter Brisken     K     wbrisken@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-016 Fernando Camilo    S     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     8     mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-028 Brenda Matthews    K     brenda.matthews@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06C-006 Wouter Vlemmings   K     wouter@jb.man.ac.uk [Frank Ghigo]
BM251      Neal Miller        L     nmiller@pha.jhu.edu []
GBT06C-008 Raghunathan Sriana 4     anand@iucaa.ernet.in [Toney Minter]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> October   November  December  January
    Astronomy ~  519 [468] 450 [373] 536 [319] 561 [345]
  Maintenance ~   83 [017]  45 [051]  52 [034]  55 [068]
  Test & Comm ~  124       172 [007]  82        54 [016]
     Shutdown ~    0        36        36         0
  Un-assigned ~   23        19        43        82

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 0
          On Hold - 16
         Schedule - 81
        Completed - 555


Current backlog [hours prior to 06C*] = 1014
   [2001:2(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:107(7), 2005:471(20), 2006:415(23)]
   Backlog excluding 800 hrs of monitoring projects after 06C = 214
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3104
   Includes 1056 hours of monitoring after trimester 06C
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06C

 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.6 - 06 Oct 2006 - BobAnderson)
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    • Base plate drawings were finalized with the results of the anchor bolt survey and have been sent to the manufacturer.
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    • Welding continued this week on the structural repairs under the actuator room.

 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.5 - 06 Oct 2006 - RogerNorrod)
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Nothing other than routine work.

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Q-band Receiver: Measurements of noise temperature and cal values, and gathering additional spectrometry data occupied the week. Scientific staff seem pretty happy with the spectral performance.

Ka Receiver/Zpectrometer: Most of this week occupied with Zpectrometer tests. It still looks go for next week's installation.

Other: C-band project still going well. Upgrades to the Converter/Filter modules continue, and fabrication of the buffered Optical Receiver dividers in process.

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  • Q-band, Install: on or before week of Oct 30
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  • Q-band, Install: on or before week of Oct 30 (Aiming for week of Oct 16.)

 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.4 - 06 Oct 2006 - RandyMcCullough)
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Digital Group Status 30-SEP-06 THRU 06-OCT-06

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Operations, Problem Summary

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***Operations, Problem Summary***

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Development

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Active Surface...

No work was done on the Active Surface this week.

Quadrant Detector...

  • John Ford and Jason Ray carried out modifications to the GDAQ firmware which simplified the A/D interrupt routine and streamlined serial communications. Initial bench tests now indicate no errors while sending and receiving messages, so an upgraded GDAQ has been set up in the Lab so that R. Creager can conduct further tests with his Manager.
  • Due to scheduling conflicts, repair of the previously reported bad thermocouple has been postponed until next week.

Weather Stations...

Ops reported a problem with wind speed on weather 2. JD & Jason took a look and found water getting inside of the electronics box via a cable which they subsequently replaced during the maintenance period on Monday (10/02). They found that the type of electrical tape used in sealing a splice didn't hold up well in this application, so plans are to investigate other alternatives.

PTCS...

Ops has reported a problem with Temperature Sensor "gbtts3-2001" which was verified by Jason and JD. They expect to take care of this during the next full maintenance day, since it's located on the left side feedarm and requires significant climbing to reach it.

***Development***

Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB)...

Construction of CCB #3 is still underway with a newly revised completion date of 20-OCT-06.

Spectrometer LTA Re-design...

Work continues on the LTA re-design project with significant progress being made toward completion of a simplified block diagram.

Lab Spectrometer...

No news to report...

ALMA (As reported by Jason Ray)...

  • Latest word from Data Translation is that we should receive a quote for building PCBA's either late this week or early next week.
  • Jason and D. Eagan worked with the shop to sort out some mechanical details regarding the board push rods now being specified in metric dimensions.
  • John Ford modified a heater control circuit to reduce transients arising from short rise and fall times. Tests indicate that rise times increased from 9 mSEC to 190 mSEC; while fall times increased from 20 mSEC to 100 mSEC.

MISCELLANEOUS...

While assisting R. Creager in setting up an MCB box in his office, we discovered a need for a working "Intelligent Converter" board (since our last spare was recently installed). Nathan Sharp built up a new board; which has now been turned over to Jason for testing with R. Creager.

***Plans***

  • Continue Active Surface maintenance as required...
  • Repair bad thermocouple reported on the Quadrant Detector...
  • Investigate alternative means for splicing cables in areas of high exposure to sun, wind-blown rain, etc...
  • Continue construction of CCB #3...
  • Continue work on LTA re-design...
  • Continue ALMA support as needed...
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Randy


 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.3 - 06 Oct 2006 - RonMaddalena)
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A very good, productive week. We supported 16 proposals in 25 observing sessions, including a VLB run. Average setup time was 12 min (this will be the last time I will report this statistic). The telescope was scheduled for 14 hrs of maintenance, 7 hrs of PAR commissioning, and 1.5 hrs of receiver checkouts.

We had only 5 problems this week for a total of 1.7 hrs, about 1.1% of the time scheduled for tests and observing.

  • Rain : 0.7 hrs
  • Winds : 0.3 hrs
  • Optical driver 7 : 0.3 hrs
  • Spectral Processor : 0.3 hrs
  • Astrid : 0.1 hrs
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Commissioning Plans -- Ron

This week, we removed Ku and repositioned X-band where Ku. This was ahead of our original plans. There were no other changes to the scheduling of any commissioning tasks. All seems to be on schedule for the Ka-band installation next week and Q-band installation the week after that.

  • Every month : Pointing -- 1 night/month except in November, A/B weather, dynamically scheduled.
  • DONE Week of Sep 4 : C-Band off telescope
  • DONE 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, Q-band, Zepctrometer lab tests
  • Week of Oct 2 - week of Oct 12 : Penn Array backup daytime engineering time : 4 day-times max.
  • 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 DONE, X-band moved to where Ku was DONE, Zpectrometer on telescope where X was
  • Week of Oct. 30 : Q-band on telescope
  • Oct 31 : Fixed maintenance day for Zpectrometer checkout
  • 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.
  • 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 DONE , Install: week of November 7
  • Penn Array, Install: week of Sep 11 DONE, Remove: week of Oct 31
  • Ka Install : week of Oct 9
  • Zpectrometer Install: week of Oct 23; Remove: Week of Dec 4
  • Ku Remove: on or before week of Oct 23 DONE ; Install: week of Dec 4
  • X band moved to Ku slot: on or before week of Oct 23 DONE
  • Q-band, Install: on or before week of Oct 30

 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.2 - 05 Oct 2006 - GlenLangston)
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Normal Spacecraft tracking continues. Completed quarterly report and preparing annual property inventory. 2007 and 2008 statement of work is being reviewed by MIT/LL.

Preparing list of spacecraft tracking projects for review.


 <<O>>  Difference Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 (r1.1 - 05 Oct 2006 - AmyShelton)
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%META:TOPICINFO{author="AmyShelton" date="1160076300" format="1.0" version="1.1"}% %META:TOPICPARENT{name="CommissioningMeetings"}%

GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

06 October 2006

AGENDA

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 -- Paul

This ends the 1st week of 6 in the seventh development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC72006. We are scheduled to release at the end of January 2007. Items deemed ready for release before that time will be patched in after they have been fully tested.

Operational support kept us relatively busy this week and included:

  • Resolution of various temperature sensor problems.
  • Addressed instance of missing PF1 receiver calibration info. This has to do with the fact that there are no R/L calibration data in the receiver calibration database.
  • GBTIDL user support; Larry Morgan has strange looking Ka data.
  • Investigated a report of DCR 10 MHz dropouts.
  • Zpectrometer data reduction and lab testing support.
  • Lab Spectrometer data support.
  • Database update due to receiver turret slot change.

Modification Requests:

  • MRs ready for integration/regression testing:
    • None
  • MRs ready for sponsor testing:
    • None
  • MRs under development
    • None
  • MRs under CCC review:
    • None
  • MRs being written:
    • Modify SDFITS to correctly show Spectrometer cross-polarization data (ModificationRequest2C706)
      • The MR has been started and Karen has sent it off to Carl and Tim for comments. We are currently investigating the aips++ code to make sure we understand what needs to be done as well as the sdfits code.
    • Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (ModificationRequest3C706)
    • GFM/Turtle Upgrade - Remove use of LPCs.conf file (ModificationRequest4C706)
    • Develop New Pointing Pre-Processing Application (ModificationRequest1C706)
  • Other Activities:

Pulsar Related -- Scott

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Any other Business


Topic CommissioningMeeting06Oct06 . { View | Diffs | r1.7 | > | r1.6 | > | r1.5 | More }
Revision r1.1 - 05 Oct 2006 - 19:25 GMT - AmyShelton
Revision r1.7 - 11 Oct 2006 - 11:50 GMT - CarlBignell 		Content copyright © 1999-2007 by the contributing authors.
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