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GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

18 February 2005

AGENDA

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

Observing News -- Ron

We supported 12 observing projects, including one VLB and one radar project, in 16 observing sessions, a slightly heavier load than usual. 135 hours went to observing, 16 to software tests, 17 to maintenance and hardware tests. Average setup time was up a bit to 47 minutes. The problem with the Spectrometer LTA board required some magnificent juggling by Carl of the observing schedule, resulting in only a few projects having their science compromised. Lost time this week, amounting to about 9 hours or 7% of the test and observing time, was much better than the large loses over the last few weeks. Weather accounted for half of the lost time. The major categories of problems were:

Except for having to work around winds, Q-band observers have been happy. The project I'm involved in has had excellent, 1st order, 800-MHz wide baselines, noise that integrates down as expected, on the mark calibration, and generally great receiver performance. The support scientist meet on Friday to talk about the support schedule in March.

Scheduling Status -- Carl 

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT05A-041, GBT05A-042, GBT05A-011, 
   GBT05A-045, GBT05A-012, GBT05A-034, 
   GBT05A-002, GBT04B-011, GBT05A-003, 
   GBT04C-037, GBT04C-049, GBT04C-006, 
   GBT03B-018, BD103     

Completed proposals
   GBT05A-045, GBT05A-034, GBT04C-049, 
   BD103, GBT05A-02

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GM059      [F  ] Jon Marcaide
       ToO Observations of SN2004et at 1.3 and 3.6cm     
  GBT05A-042 [F  ] Andrew Baker
       HI Observations of Isolated Ellipticals           
  GBT05A-010 [F B] Tim Robishaw
       Constraining the Magnetic Field in the Taurus     
       Molecular Cloud                                   
  GBT04A-001 [FP ] Paul Vanden Bout
       Q-Band CO Observations                            
  GBT04A-035 [F  ] Ingrid Stairs
       Scintillation Velocities for Two Relativistic     
       Binary Pulsars                                    
  GBT05A-003 [F  ] Bruce Campbell
       Radar Mapping of the Moon at 70-cm Wavelength     
       Using Arecibo and the GBT                         
  GBT05A-004 [  B] Dain Kavars
       OH Observations of HI Self-Absorption Clouds      
  GB053      [F  ] Norbert Bartel
       The expansion, structure, and distance of SN 1979C
  GBT04C-037 [F  ] Yancy Shirley
       GBT & VLA Ammonia Thermometry Towards Low-mass    
       Star-forming Cores                                
  GBT04A-018 [ PB] Tim Robishaw
       CCS: The Molecular Magnetometer of Choice         
  GBT04C-028 [ P ] Claire Chandler
       A search for CCS in massive protostellar          
       candidates and infrared dark clouds               
  GBT04C-006 [F  ] Paul Vanden Bout
       Q-Band Search for High Redshift Carbon Monoxide   
       Line Emission                                     
  GBT03B-018 [FP ] Yancy Shirley
       Probing Hydrocarbon Chemistry with C4H and C4D    
       towards IRAS 16293-2422                           
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 03/03/2005 - 03/17/2005
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT05A-041 Paul Demorest      L8    demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05A-020 Yancy Shirley      KQ    yshirley@nrao.edu [Glen Langston]
GBT05A-031 Jean-Luc Margot    X     jlm@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05A-033 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT04C-041 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05A-011 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05A-012 Larry Morgan       K     L.K.Morgan@star.kent.ac.uk [Ron Maddalena]
GBT01A-020 Mike Hollis        Q     jan.m.hollis@gsfc.nasa.gov [Ron Maddalena]
GBT04A-001 Paul Vanden Bout   Q     pvandenb@nrao.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT02A-035 Min Yun            KU    myun@astro.umass.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05A-038 Dan Stinebring     8L    dan.stinebring@oberlin.edu [Toney Minter]
GD018      Jeremy Darling     L     darling@ociw.edu []
GBT04C-028 Claire Chandler    K     cchandle@aoc.nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GD017      Phil Diamond       L     pdiamond@jb.man.ac.uk []
GBT03C-028 Fabian Walter      Q     walter@mpia.de [Glen Langston]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> February  March     April     May       
    Astronomy ~  422 [094] 435 [198] 436 [191] 440 [196] 
  Maintenance ~   50 [034]  13 [143]  30 [111]   0 [136] 
  Test & Comm ~  195 [020] 265 [063] 202 [036] 215 [048] 
  Un-assigned ~    5        32        53        89       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 14
          On Hold - 8
         Schedule - 53
        Completed - 288


Current backlog [hours prior to 05A*] = 908
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2559
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 05A

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

Operational issues: No new operational issues this week.

Ka Receiver - Galen is testing and tuning the prototype microstip-WR19 adapter, and making measurements on the receiver to get info needed for design of the continuum detectors. Assembly of detector video amplifier boards has been finished and functional testing is almost done.

3mm Receiver - Wiring of the cardcage and assembly of PCBs continue. Drawings of e-plane waveguide bends needed for the differencing assembly have been submitted to the shop. Experimentation is underway on the quartz window matching layer attachment.

IF System - Two upgraded ODM's went into the system this week. After adjustments are made on ODM8 next week, we will be back to eight IF channels on-line.

Other - Spare components for the LO Reference system have been completed and tested. Dual 15V power supplies are being installed in the Converter Racks because the current draw was marginal on a single supply. The installation in Rack A has been finished.

Digital Electronics Status -- Rich

Operations, Problem summary

The spectrometer limped through last weekend with the fourth quadrant not working for lack of a good spare LTA. Most of the effort this week has gone into repairing LTA cards. It was also found that the test computer and monitor had died since it was last used, and that the test fixture has developed problems. At this time, the spectrometer is operating on all cylinders and there is one good spare card. No lag steps were seen in tests of the repaired cards in the system. The other spare card and the test fixture both have problems.

In the process of working on the LTA cards, it was found that the carriers for the Xilinx chips may be causing us grief. They are not very robust mechanically. We are trying to develop a way to beef them up.

There were a few occurrences of data not being delivered by the spectrometer to the data acquisition computer. A suspect LTA card was replaced with the working spare in an attempt to improve this. I have not heard of this happening since??

Development

None. All effort expended on above.

Plans

Software Status -- Nicole

This week we transition from C1, the first development cycle of 2005, to C2. The new Plan of Record is available from the wiki at PlanOfRecordC22005. The next period of software releases, including M&Cv5.2, will occur on or around March 31, 2005.

The new version of the control software, M&Cv5.1, is now running on the telescope. There are many significant updates, so everyone is strongly encouraged to read the release notes in detail. GFM, in particular, has been upgraded so that the user can define more relaxed heuristics, one addition that was requested by many people last fall.

Release notes are available on the wiki at:

Please direct questions about new GFM functionality to Richard, and any questions about new control system additions to the SDD. AIPS++/DISH questions can be directed to Bob Garwood and Jim Braatz.

Operational support over the past week has included:

Project Planning Status -- Richard / John 

                       February 14, 2005
                       Planning Non-Meeting Agenda 
                       Rm 137 10:45 A.M.

0) Observer comments & operator log items resulting in lost time: 
    Observer's comments received from:
      John Hibbard  GBT05A-034
        Comments do not actually show up on the Web page.  Maybe next week.

    Operator's log comments
      Significant failures the past week stemmed from: 

    Computing:
      Ransom reported a transient disk crash message on Spigot computer.

    Software:
      BCPM Manager problems, Antenna manager safe hold faults, active
      surface, Spectrometer configuration bug cascading to IARDS (8
      hrs lost time?)

    Electronics:
    Spectrometer problems with hanging and bad lags (LTA problems)
    Will wait till maintenance day to swap out bad LTA.  Lots of lost
    time due to this failure.

    Telescope/Servo:
      Wind, intermittent elevation interlock problems

    Other: 

    Other Problems from Observing Reports: 
           
    
1) Resource calendar schedule conflicts and discussions
    None.

2) Observing Schedule discussions
   PTCS test time needs -- grab all test time available when the
   weather is excellent for Q band.
     
3) GBT development planning
   CCC activity

4) AOB

Any other Business

-- RichardPrestage - 18 Feb 2005

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