GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
Major Contractors have all received notifications of award.
We are in the process of planning work for this summer, particularly the measurements of the track. We also had a discussion with a grout company, and have forwarded information to VRSI.
Another excellent week of observing (if you exclude Wednesday and Thursday). We supported 12 projects in 25 observing sessions. Average set up time was 13.5 minutes. The telescope was scheduled 12.5 hrs.
Lost time was 9.5 hrs, or 6% of the time scheduled for astronomy. Excluding the lost time due to high winds about 0.7% of the time was lost.
- High Winds : 8.5 hrs
- GFM memory leak - windows disappearing : 0.54 hrs [Problem found and fix is being tested - KarenONeil]
- VNC connections lost : 0.28 hrs [Problem was on the observer's end. Total telescope time lost < 5 min - KarenONeil]
- Spigot left in bad state from tests : 0.08 hrs
- Astrid missed state change : 0.06 hrs
[No projects completed last week - KarenONeil]
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
GBT06A-053, GBT06A-044, GBT06A-011,
GBT06A-066, GBT06A-046, GBT06A-068,
GBT06A-003, GBT06A-049, GBT06A-027,
GBT06A-038, GBT05C-026, GBT06A-019,
GBT01A-005
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GBT06A-054 [ B] Paul Demorest
Long-term Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars
GBT06A-065 [ P ] Rachel Friesen
Probing the initial conditions of star formation
in Ophiuchus
GBT05B-042 [ B] Michael Kramer
Timing and General Relativity in the Double
Pulsar System
GBT06A-022 [ P ] Jim Braatz
Water Vapor Megamasers in an X-Ray Selected
Sample of AGNs
GBT06A-011 [ B] Mike Blanton
HI Content and Dynamics of Dwarf Disk Galaxies
GBT05C-042 [ B] Scott Ransom
Timing the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in
NGC6440 and NGC6441
GBT06A-056 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
Are there Unrecognized NGC4258-like Systems Among
Known Water Masers in AGN?
GBT06A-046 [F ] Glen Langston
A search for the Largest Interstellar Molecule,
HC_13N
GBT06A-003 [ B] Chris Clemens
Observational Tests for Non-radial Oscillations
in Radio Pulsars
GBT05C-033 [ B] Marko Krco
Structure and Formation of the Filamentary Cloud
L204
GBT06A-004 [ P ] William Reach
Water Masers from Protostars in IC 1396A
GBT05C-023 [ B] Fernando Camilo
PSR J1833-1034, the Very Young Pulsar in the SNR
G21.5-0.9
GBT06A-059 [ P ] Nissim Kanekar
Using CCH lines to measure changes in fundamental
constants
GBT06A-027 [F B] Karen Masters
Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS
GBT06A-049 [FP ] Tony Readhead
Definitive Detection of Excess Arcminute Scale
CMB Anisotropies
GBT06A-006 [ P ] Wouter Vlemmings
The magnetic field in the circumnuclear disk of
NGC 3079
GBT06A-028 [ B] Jack Hewitt
Mapping Radio Recombination Line Emission Toward
SNRs W28 and W44
GBT06A-018 [ P ] Joe McMullin
Isotopic Abundances in Planetary Nebulae
GBT06A-009 [ P ] Jim Condon
H_0 and Dark Energy
GBT06A-050 [F ] Steve Begin
Timing of the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in
M28, NGC6624 and NGC6522
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 04/20/2006 - 05/04/2006
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06A-063 Martin Zwaan L mzwaan@eso.org [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06A-030 Don Campbell S campbell@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest 8 demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-065 Rachel Friesen K rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-032 Jim Braatz Q jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05B-042 Michael Kramer L8 mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-044 Jeremy Darling 6 jdarling@origins.colorado.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-022 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05B-032 Steve Thorsett L thorsett@ucolick.org [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko K pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-042 Scott Ransom 8 sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-065 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
BK127 Kirsten Knudsen L knudsen@mpia-hd.mpg.de []
GBT06A-046 Glen Langston U glangsto@nrao.edu [Glen Langston]
GBT05B-034 Ingrid Stairs L istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-003 Chris Clemens L clemens@physics.unc.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-022 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-047 Miguel Angel Reque K requena@damir.iem.csic.es [Ron Maddalena]
GBT04C-043 Scott Ransom 8 sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
BK114 Paul Kondratko K pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu []
GBT06A-026 Nissim Kanekar 6 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-049 Tony Readhead B acr@astro.caltech.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT06A-038 Tom Troland L troland@pa.uky.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06A-027 Karen Masters L kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06A-039 Fernando Camilo S fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-018 Joe McMullin Q jmcmulli@nrao.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT04A-038 Brian Mason B bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
BM241 Anupreeta More X anupreeta@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de []
BB223 Norbert Bartel S bartel@yorku.ca []
GBT05C-019 Tim Robishaw L robishaw@astro.berkeley.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-061 Martin Zwaan 8 mzwaan@eso.org [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06A-050 Steve Begin S sbegin@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> April May
Astronomy ~ 585 [368] 514 [328]
Maintenance ~ 20 [085] 20 [068]
Test & Comm ~ 110 [034] 151 [041]
Un-assigned ~ 6 59
Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
Active checkout - 0
On Hold - 21
Schedule - 57
Completed - 473
Current backlog [hours prior to 06A*] = 989
[2001:2(1), 2002:88(2), 2003:19(1), 2004:138(9), 2005:614(29), 2006:128(3)]
Backlog excluding 111 hrs of monitoring projects after 06A = 878
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2340
Includes 314 hours of monitoring after trimester 06A
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06A
Operations
No problems. X-band receiver in lab looking for cause of drop-outs seen in one channel.
Development
Ka RX, Zpectrometer: Inventor model for the Zpectrometer rack has been sent out for comments.
Lab Spectrometer IF System: Third iteration for fabrication of filters and more amplifier boards is in progress at AP Circuits, I'm trying an elliptical function low pass filter in this round. Shims for wire bonding fabrication of amplifiers and mixer carriers were designed and put into shop que, completion
expected mid next week.
ORM Power Divider: First unit has been installed in the system (OR8), and testing begins today.
IF System: Converter/Filter amplifier upgrade - Converter/Filter amplifier upgrade - Ordered all parts. Finished the layout and mechanical drawings. PCB has been fabricated and returned. Submitted drawings to machine shop.
Q-band: Received Dewar cart from shop. Gathered hardware for dewar mounting
and started assembly.
C-band Upgrade:
Tested LPF prototype on 3/31 as scheduled. The unit performed as
expected. Revision of interface specifications, modeling gain/noise of room-temp electronics, and component selection, mechanical modeling (Autocad dwg)
continued.
MLLN 140 Project: Ordered suface mount VCO. The other components were
received and the PCB populated with these components. Intial testing
shows all components functional and working as expected. Rework on the
surface mount chips is necessary for higher frequency operation; the
exposed ground plane beneath the chip has to be soldered.
7Apr06 - Norrod, Anderson, Simon, Stennes, Watts, White
Digital Group Status 30-MAR-06 THRU 6-APR-06
***Operations, Problem summary***
This week, there were no significant digital hardware problems.
***Development***
Cal-Tech Continuum Backend (CCB):
This week... A total of 4 (four) DC Power Input Modules were completed, inspected, and tested... all passed with flying colors.
Two Master Cards received final QC inspection and one has undergone some testing... so far, all is going well.
Next week... We expect to complete testing of all modules, PCBA's, etc. required to complete the 2nd CCB.
By April 28th... We plan to have the 2nd CCB completely assembled and ready for final tests.
Lab Spectrometer
This week, we have continued to try to uncover the reason that spectra show up in two samplers with an input supplied to only one!
One possibility for the cause of this problem was that the Lab Spectrometer and GBT LTAs are slightly different. Previous tests had used the spare GBT LTAs because the LabSpectrometer? ones had problems. One of the LTAs had several problems which were fairly readily fixed. However, neither seem to pass system-level tests on the LTA test fixture. Various permutations of firmware were tried and still the Lab Spectrometer LTAs did not pass system-level tests on the test fixture. We finally gave up on this approach and tested them in the LabSpectrometer? against a GBT LTA and they seemed to work fine. Very possibly, firmware upgrades to the test fixture will be required to make the Lab Spectrometer LTAs test correctly in it.
In the system we were able to take data and examine the “raw lag” files. These appear basically correct except that the data may be slightly permuted. We plan to look into this further.
LTA Upgrade
Randy has continued to familiarize himself with the spectrometer in general and the LTAs in particular. His goal is to produce a design for an improved LTA.
Miscellaneous
ALMA
Jason Ray and Jack Nelson continue to spend time on ALMA bias modules and Rich on the ALMA correlator.
***Plans***
- Continue CCB construction...
- Continue Lab Spectrometer commissioning
- Continue ALMA support as needed...
This ends Week 1 of 6 in the third development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC32006.
The bulk of this week was spent meeting with sponsors and hashing out the requirements for each of our MRs scheduled for this cycle.
We plan to attend the ZSpectrometer meeting on Monday, April 10. We also plan to give a demo of our ZSpectrometer Manager (to date) to Andy Harris and Kevin Rauch.
The following MRs are sponsor approved and under development:
The following MRs are awaiting sponsor approval:
The following MRs are awaiting sponsor testing:
All other MRs are still being written.
Operational support for this week included:
- Fixed sign bug in Location representation in Astrid observing log
- Resolved memory leak in CCB API code used by GFM
Much effort this week went into trying to upgrade spigot2 to RHEL4. Wolfgang upgrade the system to a backup partition and I downloaded and compiled the latest EDT drivers on Mon. On Tues, during maintenance, Ray Creager and I spent a very long time wrestling with an EDT card initialization problem using the new kernel/driver. It would either not control the EDT card correctly or would hang the machine in a kernel panic. An email request for support from EDT suggested that the new drivers cannot be used properly in machines with 4GB of RAM or higher (spigot2 has 4GB). Tonight, I just finished 2 hours of testing using their recommendation of booting spigot2 with only 3.5GB of RAM enabled -- and things work!
I've run in the 2 main modes (2 and 42) for 10 min each while doing things in the background and have gotten no TICK errors. The data look completely normal, and my initial timing tests suggest that it (at least mode 2) is timing normally to 2us accuracy or better. I'm going to start a 4 hr scan on a globular cluster now, which will be a good test for stability (i.e. wrt TICK errs) and timing.
Things are looking good and hopefully the machine will now be much more stable (no more RAID and/or Firewire hangs). Thanks to Wolfgang and Ray for all the help, and to Amy for providing Ray all day on Tues.
I also talked to Carla and Roger about possibly trying to add a filter to the S-band system (Roger says likely after the frontend) to suppress the GPS/GLONASS/Iridium signals at ~1620MHz that blast the low frequency part of the fluctuation power spectra (i.e. during pulsar searches). Removing this stuff will be essential for the S-band system with 600MHz of BW to be useful for anything but millisecond pulsars (right now, the vast majority of the RFI is periodic at rates less than 100Hz. So this hasn't hurt the globular cluster searches, for example, since MSPs are at higher freqs. Unless of course the globular clusters have lots of slow pulsars as well...). I'll write a short memo on this within the next week.
Since I'm going to end up being up a good fraction of the night, there is a good chance that I won't make it to the meeting. 
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
The MIT/LL group is running diagnostic tests of the data recording and calibration this
week. We will have maintaince and operator training on Monday April 10.
Schedule for remainder of the week is to be determined.
Until the end of April, operators will be at the 43m to check on the tracking status.
Since grounding improvements on Monday, we have not had any communications glitches
in the PLC system. More tests are planned for this weekend.
Completion of construction celibration was a great success.
The 43m quarterly report is due, as is the proposal for spacecraft tracking
in 2007 and 2008.
[Operations screen is up in control room, if anyone wants to see it - KarenONeil]
Revision r1.10 - 07 Apr 2006 - 15:27 GMT - KarenONeil
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