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GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

21 April 2006

AGENDA

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

Observing News -- Ron

A very busy observing week with an unprecedented 21 projects in 33 observing sessions. Average setup time was 14 min. The telescope was also scheduled for 8.5 hrs of maintenance and 1 hr of program checkouts.

Lost time was 4.1 hrs, about 2.6% of the time scheduled for observing. There were only 11 incidents of lost time. In fact, as I write this, the last incident was early Tuesday afternoon. The causes of lost time were:

There were also a few other incidents with Astrid but these did not cause any lost time.

Scheduling Status -- Carl 

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT06A-065, GBT06A-032, GBT06A-054, 
   GBT06A-022, GBT06A-011, GBT05B-042, 
   GBT06A-056, GBT05C-042, GBT05C-065, 
   GBT06A-046, GBT05C-022, GBT06A-047, 
   GBT04C-043, GBT06A-003, GBT05C-033, 
   GBT06A-027, GBT05C-046, GBT06A-006, 
   GBT04A-038, GBT05C-019, GBT06A-050

Completed proposals
   GBT05C-033, GBT06A-006, GBT04A-038

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT06A-032 [ P ] Jim Braatz
       A Search for the First SiO Megamaser              
  GBT06A-065 [ P ] Rachel Friesen
       Probing the initial conditions of star formation  
       in Ophiuchus                                      
  GBT06A-044 [ PB] Jeremy Darling
       Intrinsic HI and OH Absorption in Compact Radio   
       Sources at High Redshift                          
  GBT06A-022 [ P ] Jim Braatz
       Water Vapor Megamasers in an X-Ray Selected       
       Sample of AGNs                                    
  GBT06A-056 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
       Are there Unrecognized NGC4258-like Systems Among 
       Known Water Masers in AGN?                        
  GBT06A-046 [ PB] Glen Langston
       A search for the Largest Interstellar Molecule,   
       HC_13N                                            
  GBT06A-014 [ P ] Andrea Tarchi
       H2O vs Continuum in the Megamaser 3C403:          
       Reverberation Mapping of the Nucleus              
  GBT06A-003 [  B] Chris Clemens
       Observational Tests for Non-radial Oscillations   
       in Radio Pulsars                                  
  GBT06A-047 [ P ] Miguel Angel Requena-Torres
       Complex Molecules in the Galactic Center          
       molecular clouds                                  
  GBT06A-026 [F B] Nissim Kanekar
       A search for 21cm absorption towards MgII         
       absorbers in the redshift desert                  
  GBT06A-049 [ P ] Tony Readhead
       Definitive Detection of Excess Arcminute Scale    
       CMB Anisotropies                                  
  GBT06A-027 [F B] Karen Masters
       Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS  
  GBT06A-039 [F  ] Fernando Camilo
       Deep Searches of Three Pulsar Wind Nebulae        
  BB223      [F  ] Norbert Bartel
       The expansion and deceleration of SNR 41.9+58 in  
       M82                                               
  GBT05C-019 [  B] Tim Robishaw
       The Galactic Arachnid in the Ursa Major Loop      
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 05/04/2006 - 05/18/2006
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06A-063 Martin Zwaan       L     mzwaan@eso.org [Karen O'Neil]
GBT04C-050 Wendy Lane         A     wendy.peters@nrl.navy.mil [Rick Fisher]
GBT06A-032 Jim Braatz         Q     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-065 Rachel Friesen     K     rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest      8     demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-011 Mike Blanton       L     blanton@nyu.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT05B-042 Michael Kramer     L8    mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-042 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-065 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-046 Glen Langston      U     glangsto@nrao.edu [Glen Langston]
GBT05B-034 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-014 Andrea Tarchi      K     atarchi@ira.cnr.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-047 Miguel Angel Reque KU    requena@damir.iem.csic.es [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06A-026 Nissim Kanekar     8     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT05C-023 Fernando Camilo    8     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-046 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-027 Karen Masters      L     kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06A-049 Tony Readhead      B     acr@astro.caltech.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT06A-039 Fernando Camilo    S     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-037 Nissim Kanekar     A     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Glen Langston]
GBT06A-018 Joe McMullin       Q     jmcmulli@nrao.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT05C-019 Tim Robishaw       L     robishaw@astro.berkeley.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-050 Steve Begin        S     sbegin@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-061 Martin Zwaan       8     mzwaan@eso.org [Karen O'Neil]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> April     May       June      
    Astronomy ~  567 [130] 527 [336] 135 [027] 
  Maintenance ~   51 [017]  20 [068] 177       
  Test & Comm ~  102 [013] 156 [041]  22 [003] 
  Un-assigned ~    0        42       388       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 38
  Active checkout - 0
          On Hold - 21
         Schedule - 53
        Completed - 477


Current backlog [hours prior to 06A*] = 971
   [2001:2(1), 2002:88(2), 2003:19(1), 2004:131(8), 2005:603(27), 2006:128(3)]
   Backlog excluding 111 hrs of monitoring projects after 06A = 861
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3497
   Includes 314 hours of monitoring after trimester 06A
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06A

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

The X-band receiver was installed on Thursday - RCO Friday evening.

About 2 hours of lost time (donated by a friendly observer) due to a PF1 tripped circuit breaker. Cause not known at this time.

We have a frequency converter and noise source assembled so that when the Lab ACS and needed analysis software are ready, stability tests can begin. The test dewar for Q-band is being assembled. Components were ordered for the Zpectrometer rack.

Digital Electronics Status -- Randy and Rich

Digital Group Status 14-APR-06 THRU 20-APR-06

***Operations, Problem summary***

This week, the only significant digital hardware problem was one with the active surface. It had trouble booting up and required a trip to the telescope to reset its networking equipment.

***Development***

Cal-Tech Continuum Backend (CCB):

No progress except for preparations for a technical talk this week. The materials in this talk will be useful for the system documentation package.

By April 28th... Still on track to have the 2nd CCB completely assembled and ready for final tests.

Lab Spectrometer

Software for the 800 MHz mode has been revised to account for the measured way in which lags are delivered by the hardware. This needs to be tested.

The samplers have been tuned for optimal thresholds for an input of -17 dbm. One sampler was found to be defective. The cause appears to be in the high-speed comparator chip.

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 has placed an order for custom connectors (approximately $14K including non-recurring engineering charges).

***Plans***

- Continue CCB construction... - Continue Lab Spectrometer commissioning - Continue ALMA support as needed...

Software Status -- Amy

This ends Week 3 of 6 in the third development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC32006.

Most of the group was out this week (Amy,Melinda in Edinburgh; Mark in France; Paul in Boston).

Operational support for this week included:

Summary of Cycle 3 MRs:

Pulsar Related -- Scott

Many more hours this week devoted to finishing a bunch of changes to the Spigot data analysis software that actively removes "bursty" RFI (which is quite common at S-band). This has been tested quite extensively on a bunch of globular cluster data where we've been searching for giant pulses. Our newly discovered giant pulses from Terzan5A show up quite spectacularly with the new improvements. Fernando Camilo, Paul Ray, and Joe Lazio are currently testing the software on a variety of M31, Galactic Center, and young pulsar observations.

Note: I might have to miss the meeting tomorrow morning as I'm hosting Alberto Bolato's visit (i.e. job interview). If I come in late or leave early this is why.

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Week of normal spacecraft tracking. Tracked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Will do the same next week.

We are preparing the 43m control room for some front end work, when the MIT/LL dewar arrives in June.

Any other Business

-- CarlBignell - 20 Apr 2006

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