GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
Activities list
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
GBT04A-040, GBT06C-051, GBT06C-042,
GBT06B-044, GBT06C-032, GBT05B-011,
GBT05C-023, GBT06B-036, GBT06C-102,
GBT06C-025, GBT06C-049, GBT06C-016,
GBT06C-038, GBT04A-027, BB234 ,
GBT06B-018, GBT06C-039, GBT06C-019,
GBT05C-019
Completed proposals
GBT06C-042, GBT06C-102, GBT06C-019
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GC028 [F ] John Conway
Sensitive high frequency observations of the
compact sources in Arp 220
GBT04A-040 [ P ] Steve Myers
Anomalous Microwave Emission from Spinning Dust
Grains?
GBT06C-052 [F ] Scott Ransom
Continued Timing of the Binary and Millisecond
Pulsars in NGC6440 and NGC6441
GBT06C-032 [ B] Peter Martin
The Galactic foreground at the North Ecliptic Pole
GBT06B-044 [F ] Robert Ferdman
Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the
Parkes Multibeam Survey
GBT06A-015 [ P ] Sandrine Bottinelli
The hot corinos of solar-type protostars
GBT06C-035 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O
Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs
GBT06C-048 [F ] Nissim Kanekar
HI 21cm absorption in strong MgII and CI
absorbers in the redshift desert
GBT06C-038 [F B] Jay Lockman
GBT Mapping of HI Clouds in the Disk-Halo
Interface
GBT06C-049 [F ] Karen Masters
Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS
GBT06C-039 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: Circumnuclear
Disk Accelerations
GBT01A-005 [ P ] Barry Turner
A High-resolution Spectral Survey Of Tmc-1 At
Q-band
BB231 [F ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: Measuring
Distances to NGC6323 and Mrk 1419
GBT05C-019 [F B] Tim Robishaw
The Galactic Arachnid in the Ursa Major Loop
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 01/04/2007 - 01/18/2007
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT07A-074 Jack Hewitt X j-hewitt@northwestern.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill K greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06B-042 Nissim Kanekar 4 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06B-032 Steve Begin S sbegin@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-033 Jason Hessels 8 jhessels@science.uva.nl [Scott Ransom]
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]
GBT07A-036 Yi-nan Chin CX einmann@astro.phys.tku.edu.tw [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-013 Jim Braatz U jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT07A-015 Jeff Mangum CU jmangum@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-012 Steve Curran 4 sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06C-035 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-023 Fernando Camilo 8 fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-013 Steve Curran 4 sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06A-015 Sandrine Bottinell Q sandrine@ifa.hawaii.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT06A-049 Tony Readhead B acr@astro.caltech.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT06C-058 Gary Fuller KUX G.A.Fuller@manchester.ac.uk [Larry Morgan]
GBT06B-037 Joel Weisberg L jweisber@carleton.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-026 Clive Dickinson U cdickins@astro.caltech.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-048 Nissim Kanekar 4 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-038 Jay Lockman L jlockman@nrao.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-016 Fernando Camilo S fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-026 Tom Devlin X devlin@physics.rutgers.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT04A-027 Brian Mason B bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT06B-018 Michael Kramer L mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-017 Miles Blanton U mcb39@physics.unc.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-018 Ingrid Stairs LS istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-019 Toney Minter L tminter@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT01A-005 Barry Turner Q bturner@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-008 Raghunathan Sriana 4 anand@iucaa.ernet.in [Toney Minter]
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> December January
Astronomy ~ 585 [072] 636 [477]
Maintenance ~ 62 52 [072]
Test & Comm ~ 47 [011] 57 [022]
Shutdown ~ 52 0
Un-assigned ~ 5 4
Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 45
Active checkout - 0
On Hold - 15
Schedule - 64
Completed - 582
Current backlog [hours prior to 06C*] = 821
[2001:2(1), 2002:0(4), 2003:19(1), 2004:84(21), 2005:469(22), 2006:247(14)]
Backlog excluding 207 hrs of monitoring projects after 06C = 614
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3905
Includes 295 hours of monitoring after trimester 06C
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06C
-
- We continue with 2 steps forward, one backward with base plate fabrication, but it is definitely forward progress. The first two pieces have been welded together, but exceed tolerances on length and hole locations. Continental is adjusting their machining programs to compensate.
- The first load of wear plate blanks arrived at Gadsden, and they are beginning machining of these over the holidays. I'll be visiting them one day next week (likely Tuesday) to see how they will check our parts.
- Dennis, Harry, Mike Holstine, and Harry Morton will be back in Savannah the first week of the New Year for a "scheduling party". This is a knockdown, drag out session to reduce handoffs and interferences during the outage and minimize duration. I put together the first run of an integrated schedule this week, but need much information on many activities.
- We had to replace the grout under plate 46 this week due to deterioration. That effort by the mechanics really went well.
The big news this week was the lost time due to the repair of the track grout. We used the down time rather productively. The down time served as our maintenance for the week, we had some servo repairs. The big 'winner' was Ka-commissioning which used the telescope as a transit instrument. About 20 hrs of astronomy was pre-empted.
We supported 18 projects in 25 observing sessions including some rather successful CCB observations. PTCS tests this week were cut short to 9 hrs due to the weather, the remaining time went to observing. We had 22 hrs of maintenance (16 hrs was originally scheduled), 22 hrs of Ka-band commissioning (8 hrs originally scheduled). Except for the grout problems, we had few problems this week:
- Astrid lockups : 0.6 hrs
- Az Servo Control Board : 0.5 hrs
- Observer error (bad script) : 0.5 hrs
- Active Surface reboot : 0.4 hrs
- Winds (backup observer took over) : 0.3 hrs
No serious operational problems were reported. There was some troubleshooting of the feed defroster. Also, a retrofit of the cryo pressure monitor circuit board was done and we expect this will prevent the occasional oscillation problem seen in the past.
Design work continues for the C-band integrated receiver package. PCB purchase is being finalized. Progress was made on the housing design. Documentation of the phase 1 work is being prepared.
Six of the eight IF channels now have the new buffered power dividers installed.
Digital Group Status 16-DEC-06 THRU 22-DEC-06
***Operations, Problem Summary***
Bob Simon reported that the feed defroster hardware wasn't responding to a "turn off" software command; however, subsequent testing showed that everything was working as expected.
Active Surface Maintenance...
Two LVDT modules were repaired which re-activated a total of 32 actuators.
***Development***
Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB)...
Construction of CCB #3 is still underway with a newly revised completion date of 12-JAN-07. Efforts to complete CCB #3 by year-end were upset by unexpected events (i.e., a death in Jason's family and illness in Randy's family). The newly revised completion date is 12-JAN-07.
Spectrometer LTA Re-design...
Design of the new FPGA Adapter PCB is nearly finished. A panelized version of the circuit board which eliminates the need for any sort of post-production de-panelization fixture has been designed (the finished assemblies will simply be snapped apart and their edges "dressed" with a simple sanding operation). A special fixture to hold the surface mount pins (84 on each board!) in place during assembly is now being designed with an expected completion date of 05-JAN-07.
ALMA...
On-going efforts are continuing fairly smoothly on the ALMA front.
***Plans***
- Continue construction of CCB #3...
- Continue design of new LTA FPGA adapter circuit board...
- Continue ALMA efforts as required...
Randy
We are in week five 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 and user support was relatively light this week and included:
- We helped debug custom ScanTypes used by Tim Robishaw.
- We helped define a configuration for Spectrometer in which the Manager could write data to local scratch disk.
Modification Requests:
- MRs ready for integration/regression testing:
- GFM/Turtle Upgrade - Remove use of LPCs.conf file (ModificationRequest4C706)
- We will be releasing this on a maintenance day soon when the Astrid hang-up MR is ready for release.
- Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (ModificationRequest9C706)
- We tested a preliminary 6.6.1 version, but found several problems. Items from first test are now resolved and were re-tested on 7 Dec. Test 07 Dec results: We are still looking into an issue with unexpected LPC/LFC zeroing. We also experienced a hang when going on-line - GFM appears to get into a loop refilling the first and second scan of the project when going on-line. We are currently working to resolve these issues and have test time scheduled over the holidays.
- MRs ready for sponsor testing:
- Modify SDFITS and aips++ to correctly process Spectrometer cross-polarization data (ModificationRequest2C706)
- Tim Robishaw reports that the fix isn't correct. We are waiting on feedback as to what might be wrong.
- Change scaling for the Autocorrelation Spectra in the Spectrometer (ModificationRequest6C706)
- Done (except for documentation changes and release notes). Now in integration. GFM appears to work fine with these changes - note that because GFM displays total power values that these raw numbers are 2x larger than they were before these changes, as expected. Tim Robishaw has verified that this is correct.
- Change GO fits file so that RA is in degrees (ModificationRequest15C705)
- Code commited in CVS. Must change GO FITS documentation.
- MRs under development
- SDFits Changes - Add target position and HIGH_CAL keywords to sdfits and other requested sdfits changes (ModificationRequest3C706)
- 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). We spent a lot of time tracking down historical COORDSYS usages - TRGTLONG and TRGTLAT now done.
- GBTIDL Changes necessary in support of related sdfits tool changes (ModificationRequest8C706)
- Develop New Pointing Pre-Processing Application (ModificationRequest5C706)
- Currently enhancing the peakdata module to become a more complete prepoint application. Adjusting prepoint to use new code modules refactored earlier for this MR. Updating prepoint's focus scan analysis / processing capabilities to the same level as peak scan capabilities.
- MRs under CCC review:
- Other Activities:
- Dynamic Scheduling - We have begun the Object-Oriented Analysis for the software suite which attempts to capture the requirements as Object/Dynamic/Functional Models. Progress will be tracked on the Dynamic Scheduling Web.
- Balancing Project - MelindaMello and AmyShelton reviewed the MRs, which were updated by FrankGhigo. We have made modifications to them and added our comments. We have provided FrankGhigo with a list of 2 MRs that need to be written. One should be initially written by MelindaMello (Security daemon) and the other one (IF Rack) by FrankGhigo. The implementation of these MRs is expected in C1 of 2007.
- Zpectrometer Support - None this week.
- Servo Test Support & Analysis - JoeBrandt is working with the Servo group on changes for friction compensation. The MR for this has been updated and the code ready for servo testing. We are awaiting a sponsor signature from JohnFord.
- 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 -- John and Richard
- Engineering - John
- Testing for the friction compensation and acceleration feedforward was started this week during the track repair time. Hardware problems and software problems prevented us from finishing this up. We will test this during maintenance time in January, and try to get some test time in January.
- Astronomy - Richard
Had a meeting with Rich Lacasse and Rick Fisher discussing the design requirements for the Berkeley iBob/Bee2 FPGA-based "test" pulsar backend. Basically it will be a Spigot replacement (i.e. search mode only) with the additional capability of recording full Stokes parameters (of course with twice the frequency resolution that means that the data rates are between 2-8 times more than the Spigot as it is used now!). Rich seemed to have been pretty impressed with what the Berkeley folks have done.
Yesterday I greatly improved the python tools for reading and playing with raw Spigot data. These improvements will be crucial for the remaining work that Ryan and I will do after the New Year on the 8-bit Spigot modes.
An very quick example, showing the bandpasses for L-band and S-band -- including the RFI that I've been talking about between 1625 and 1650MHz, is shown in the plot below.
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
We had normal spacecraft tracking this week.
Tracking this week will end on Saturday at 5 AM.
On January 2, the folks from MIT/LL will drive to GB to start installation of their dewar.
We have now finished all tests that we originally planned. Most items were achieved on our original schedule. Many of the changes to the original plan were to relax the installation and removal or receivers. Some were to provide external groups with more test time then they had originally asked for.
During the course of Ka-band commissioning, we came to the conclusion that fast nodding of the telescope might be a way to get around Ka's baseline problem. This week we tried Brian's method for fast nodding using antenna trajectories within a single scan. In January, we'll test whether baselines are helped by using the subreflector to nod the beam of the telescope. The tests we performed during the grout repair were meant to determine the kind of baseline shapes we would see if we treated the Ka-band receiver as a total power device, rather than a correlation receiver.
- 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 Actually re-installed Dec. 14
- 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
-- CarlBignell - 21 Dec 2006
Revision r1.10 - 22 Dec 2006 - 14:29 GMT - ScottRansom
Parents: WebHome > CommissioningMeetings
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