GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
- Production of base plates continues at Continental. Anchor bolt lugs have been welded on 31 plates, and as of Wednesday, 4 plates had top and bottom surfaces ground.
- The first few wear plates are being burned out at the steel company. Pictures at 10.
- All of the studs have been machined, packed, and will be shipped with the nuts to us next week.
- The spring plates for the 140' distorted a little after heat treating. They are being cleaned up at the machine shop, and should be ready around New Year's Day.
- Ultrasonic inspection of the Elevation shaft is finishing up today. At present, there appears to be no change, but the data must be thoroughly compared to previous work back at the office.
Over the last two weeks we supported 23 projects in 50 observing sessions, including a VLB run. Lots of other activities too: Maintenance (26.5 hrs), Zpec commissioning (21.5 hrs), PTCS tests (12.5 hrs), CCB commissioning (11.5 hrs), Q- and Ka-band commissioning (11 hrs), receiver checkouts (3 hrs) plus 30 hrs for the Thanksgiving shutdown.
Even with all this activity, lost time was remarkably low (9 hrs or 3.2% of the non-maintenance time) with the CCB hardware problem dominating the lost time.
- CCB Hardware : 6.8 hrs
- Winds : 0.7 hrs
- Astrid Lockups (5 instances) : 0.6 hrs
- Spectral processor (2 instances) : 0.2 hrs
- Others (accessor, turret lock, Astrid LPC, Scan Coord, Astrid Config) : 0.8 hrs
Last 2 Weeks
=============
Observations for proposals
GC028 , GBT06C-051, GBT05C-051,
GBT06A-054, GBT06B-042, GBT06C-032,
GBT06B-011, GBT06B-055, GBT06C-045,
GBT06C-013, GBT06B-014, GBT06A-004,
GBT05C-023, GBT06C-035, GBT06C-003,
GBT06C-037, GBT06C-004, GBT06C-016,
GBT06C-049, GBT06C-039, GBT06B-018,
GBT06B-019
Completed proposals
GBT06B-011, GBT06B-055
Next Week
=========
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
GBT06A-054 [F ] Paul Demorest
Long-term Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars
GBT06B-042 [F ] Nissim Kanekar
The nature of damped Lyman-alpha systems, as
traced by their spin temperature.
BB209 [F ] Edward Boyce
Observations of Gravitational Lens Central Images
GBT06C-032 [F B] Peter Martin
The Galactic foreground at the North Ecliptic Pole
GBT05B-011 [ B] Toney Minter
Using Pulsar HI Absorption to Determine the
Distance to the Local Spiral Arm in the Second
Quadrant of the Galaxy
GBT06A-014 [ P ] Andrea Tarchi
H2O vs Continuum in the Megamaser 3C403:
Reverberation Mapping of the Nucleus
GBT06B-036 [ P ] Jim Jackson
Pre-stellar evolution in Infrared Dark Cloud Cores
GBT06C-035 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O
Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs
BB228 [F ] Michael Bietenholz
The Evolution of the Central Source in SN 1986J
GBT06C-013 [F ] Steve Curran
The Nature of High Redshift Intervening
Absorption Systems
GBT06C-025 [ PB] Amanda Kepley
Magnetic Fields in Irregular Galaxies: NGC 1156
and Holmberg II
GBT04B-014 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
Anchoring the Extragalactic Distance Scale
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
GBT06C-104 [F ] Scott Chapman
HI in AndXII, a dSph galaxy falling in from a
filament
GBT06C-039 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: Circumnuclear
Disk Accelerations
GBT06C-019 [ P ] Satoshi Yamamoto
Testing the Production Pathways of CCS
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 12/14/2006 - 12/28/2006
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GC028 John Conway U jconway@oso.chalmers.se []
GBT04A-040 Steve Myers XUB smyers@nrao.edu []
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill K greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-052 Scott Ransom 8 sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-042 Jeremy Darling L jdarling@origins.colorado.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06B-044 Robert Ferdman L ferdman@phas.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-032 Peter Martin L pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06B-034 Jacqueline van Gor L jvangork@astro.columbia.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05B-011 Toney Minter L tminter@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-015 Sandrine Bottinell Q sandrine@ifa.hawaii.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT05C-023 Fernando Camilo 8 fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-036 Jim Jackson K jackson@bu.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT06C-035 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-102 Wouter Vlemmings K wouter@jb.man.ac.uk [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-025 Amanda Kepley L kepley@astro.wisc.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06B-015 Larry Morgan K lmorgan@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-048 Nissim Kanekar 8 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-016 Fernando Camilo 8CSX fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-049 Karen Masters L kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-038 Jay Lockman L jlockman@nrao.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT04A-027 Brian Mason B bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
BB234 Edward Boyce C eboyce@mit.edueboyce@nrao.edu []
GBT06C-039 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06B-018 Michael Kramer 8 mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT01A-005 Barry Turner Q bturner@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-019 Satoshi Yamamoto K yamamoto@phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp [Larry Morgan]
BB231 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu []
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> November December January
Astronomy ~ 526 585 [344] 554 [345]
Maintenance ~ 65 52 [034] 55 [068]
Test & Comm ~ 94 72 [016] 44 [012]
Shutdown ~ 36 36 0
Un-assigned ~ 0 5 98
Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
Active checkout - 0
On Hold - 16
Schedule - 66
Completed - 575
Current backlog [hours prior to 06C*] = 903
[2001:2(1), 2002:0(4), 2003:19(1), 2004:107(21), 2005:469(23), 2006:306(16)]
Backlog excluding 162 hrs of monitoring projects after 06C = 741
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2252
Includes 250 hours of monitoring after trimester 06C
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06C
Astronomical testing of the reworked C-band receiver was positive, with
Tsys being 5-10K lower than previously. The larger refrigerator allowed us
to cool the OMT to 20K and shorten coaxial connections between the OMT and
the LNAs.
A helium leak in the cryo #2 compressor lines was corrected. It lay at one
of the refrigerator Airquip fittings, which necessitated a warmup of the
Q-band receiver.
We had seen some problems with condensation on the Q-band vacuum window,
probably because the receiver was installed in the rain. Fittings were
added this week, so the area between the vacuum window and the weather
radome can be purged with dry nitrogen, and purging was accomplished.
Positive pressure will be maintained as before with the Receiver Room dry
air system.
Ongoing work includes fabrication and test of buffered power dividers for
the Optical Receivers (four units in the system have been upgraded),
upgrades of the RFI cages in the active surface room (about half have been
completed), and development of the RFI monitoring station for the GBT.
Design work continues for the C-band integrated receiver package. Filter
design and PCB layout is the current focus. Analysis of the filter
requirements is being done.
Digital Group Status 25-NOV-06 THRU 01-DEC-06
***Operations, Problem Summary***
CCB
Saturday afternoon, Brian Mason reported a problem with CCB #1 in the Receiver Room. J.D. and I investigated and discovered that CCB #1 was "locked up" and wouldn't re-boot reliably. We replaced CCB #1 with CCB #2 and left Brian to deal with some Manager-related issues. Back in the Lab, we discovered that the small fan which cools the CPU chip on the PC-104 computer board had failed. The fan in question has an advertised service life in excess of 50,000 hours, so why it failed so soon is a mystery. J.D. is ordering some replacement fans and we're in the process of looking for a more reliable replacement. In addition, we're running some temperature profile tests in an attempt to determine if we're overstressing the fan.
***Development***
Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB)...
- (See above), and...
- Construction of CCB #3 is still underway with a newly revised completion date of 15-DEC-06.
Spectrometer LTA Re-design...
Design of the new FPGA Adapter PCB is underway and should be completed by 08-DEC-06. Our plan is to have at least two board assembly houses quote price and delivery for completing 25-30 assemblies.
ALMA...
On-going efforts are continuing smoothly on the ALMA front.
***Plans***
- Continue to investigate failure of CCB #1's CPU fan...
- Continue construction of CCB #3...
- Continue design of new LTA FPGA adapter circuit board...
- Continue ALMA efforts as required...
Randy
We are in week two of the eighth (and final) development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC82006. 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:
- Addressed a CCB server to M&C Manager callback problem.
- Remijan reportied problems with AIPS++ weekly build. This has been resolved.
- Various SDFITS/GBTIDL support items.
Modification Requests:
- MRs ready for integration/regression testing:
- MRs ready for sponsor testing:
- MRs under development
- 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)
- We made a minor update to the MR after reflection on an e-mail from Robishaw (change in how the first 1024-lags will be used in x-corr case - checked but not fixed, just flagged if bad).
- GBTIDL Changes necessary in support of related sdfits tool changes (ModificationRequest8C706)
- Change scaling for the Autocorrelation Spectra in the Spectrometer (ModificationRequest6C706)
- Done (except for documentation changes and release notes). Now in integration. Someone needs to verify that gfm-test is unaffected by these changes.
- Change GO fits file so that RA is in degrees (ModificationRequest15C705)
- Develop New Pointing Pre-Processing Application (ModificationRequest5C706)
- Refactored supporting configuration file code, and pointing related peak processing code. Testing affected GFM code to ensure that it works with refactored code. Just started modification of peakdata to use newly refactored code, and complete the required functionality per MR.
- GFM/Turtle Upgrade - Remove use of LPCs.conf file (ModificationRequest4C706)
- Will be sponsor testing November 30 and possibly releasing as a patch. If released, we will email
gbtlocal.
- Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (ModificationRequest9C706)
- Will be sponsor testing November 30 and possibly releasing as a patch. If released, we will email
gbtlocal.
- MRs under CCC review:
- Other Activities:
- Dynamic Scheduling - Continued work on testcases in database. Done examining Weather: predicted winds vs. actual winds. Started appyling selection and priority rules to test database. Using DEAP to graphically display results of queries. This is helping us determine what kinds of data the user/operator needs to make intelligent decisions. We are adding more fields in test database as needed to run meaningful queries. The initial version of the software suite is completed. We are also laying out plans for future simulation tests.
- Balancing Project - FrankGhigo has updated the MRs. MelindaMello and AmyShelton will review them next week and provide input. The implementation of these MRs is expected in C1 of 2007.
- Zpectrometer Support - Assisted in testing on the installed Zpectrometer this week.
- Servo Test Support & Analysis - JoeBrandt is working with the Servo group on changes for friction compensation. An MR has been written and there is code ready for servo testing.
- Track Model Support - JoeBrandt started a PTCS project note which describes the processing the antenna does to convert refracted az/el commands into servo commands, and vice-versa.
PTCS Project -- John and Richard
- Engineering
- Work continues on adding friction compensation to the telescope.
- MR Written for servo code enhancements
- Hardware construction underway for summing in new command
- Modeling confirms squirrelly behavior at command zero crossings
- LRFV2 work continues to shield and filter synthesizers and other RF components
- Fred continues to refine the actuator zero-point table of offsets
- Astronomy
- We checked the different OOF Holography gravity models with observations using Ka-Band + CCB. The weather was marginal, but appeared good enough, and the scheduling was excellent; we managed to follow 3C84 from zenith to horizon, as well as observe a number of other primary and secondary calibrators. The definitive answer awaits the complete data analysis, but preliminary indications are that the 2005WinterV2 and WinterV3? models are similar, and both provide a substantial improvement over no model.
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
Mostly normal spacecraft tracking. We are investigating some troubles with
partial command files produced from the latest schedules. May be
a timing issue.
Regular tracking Tuesday through Friday of next week.
MIT/LL group will come to GB in two weeks to perform some computer backup
and upgrade work in the trailer. They had hoped to deliver their dewar
to the 43m in December, but now think that this will slip until
January 2, 2007. They need to know of the availability of Mechanics
the first week in Jan.
They also would like us to consider our plans for installation
of the cryogenic lines in the dewar. Ie approximately where
we will install the lines and how we will run the supply and
return lines.
The MIT/LL group will perform all RF work during the
dewar work and modifying the feed cables.
We again tried to commission Q-band and once more encountered symptoms that suggested we had condensation on the dewar window. This Wed., the radome was purged with warm, dry N2 and the desiccants were replaced. Q-band also had a leak in the cryogenic lines which required that we warm it up. Q should be cold for some quick Tsys tests today aimed at just testing if the radome is now dry.
Zpec and CCB commissioning ended this week with what looks like a resounding success for the CCB. The Zpec team and our own commissioning exercises seem to indicate that we still have a baseline problem with Ka-band. We held a meeting on Thursday to discuss the Ka-band problems and I'll be sending out a separate email with our conclusions and suggestions.
- 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. Extended to Nov 7
- 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. Actually happened week of Nov. 13
- Nov 6 - Dec 14 : Q-band commissioning -- 1 night/week, A-weather, dynamically scheduled. 3 nights max. Started Nov. 13
- 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.
- C-band, Remove: week of Sep 4, Install: no later than week of November 7 Actually installed Nov. 15
- Penn Array, Install: week of Sep 11, Remove: no later than week of Oct 31 Actually removed Nov. 14
- 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
-- RichardPrestage - 01 Nov 2006
Revision r1.11 - 05 Dec 2006 - 21:15 GMT - RandyMcCullough
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