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GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

17 February 2006

AGENDA

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

Bob A. and Dennis E. have taken a trip to Sterling Detriot to discuss material for new 43m break springs.

Observing News -- Frank 

The main problem was the weather -- we were in snow dump
from 05:00 Saturday morning Feb 11th to 15:00 Sunday
afternoon.

The summary:
  - weather 33h
  - software 2.76h
  - az brake fault 1.4 h
  - back ends 0.42
  - "other" 1.1h

The Lunar radar (06A_030) was particularly hard hit:
  - after a few minutes of good data on Friday night,
  there was an AZ brake fault.
  By the time this was fixed, there wasn't another
  chance for the radar, so the next project started early.
  - Saturday night was lost due to snow
  - Sunday Arecibo had a transmitter problem

The Venus radar (06A_062) was a little better:
  - the Sunday morning run was lost due to snow,
  - but the Tuesday run was succesful.

Software problems
  - Fri 10 Feb, (06A_027)
    Spectrometer configured to wrong frequency
    (possible user error??) and
    it took about 40 minutes to notice this,
    re-run configuration, re-start turtle, etc.

  - Thu 16 Feb (06A_027) Seeming problem with Astrid
    which turned out to be due to a file that
    was being referenced not being world readable.  (1.3 hr)

"Other" problem  1.1 hr.
  - Wed 15 Feb (05C_064) Remote user confused by gbtstatus
    screen reporting polarization and obs frequency
    incorrectly -- a previously known problem.

Back end problem .42 hr
  - Tues 14 Feb (06A_013), the ACS hung in stopping, then
    taskmaster hung while trying to stop and restart.

Some problems have been noted with the new window manager on
Titania -- Ingrid found that VNC ran much slower than usual,
and that when an Astrid pop-up window is present one cannot
manipulate any other windows.

Otherwise, everything ran just fine!

Scheduling Status -- Carl 

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT06A-062, GBT06A-030, GBT06A-066, 
   GBT06A-022, GBT05C-064, GBT06A-001, 
   GBT06A-013, GBT04C-043, GBT05C-023, 
   GBT06A-049, GBT05C-046, GBT06A-027, 
   GBT06A-009, GBT01A-005, GBT06A-050

Completed proposals
   GBT05C-064

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT06A-062 [F  ] Jean-Luc Margot
       Venus spin dynamics                               
  GBT06A-043 [  B] Larry Morgan
       OH Masers In Triggered Star Forming Regions       
  GBT06A-066 [F B] David Nidever
       HI Mapping of the Extended Magellanic Stream      
  GBT05B-042 [F  ] Michael Kramer
       Timing and General Relativity in the Double       
       Pulsar System                                     
  GBT06A-001 [F B] Vincent Fish
       SiH: The Hiding Hydride                           
  GBT06A-046 [  B] Glen Langston
       A search for the Largest Interstellar Molecule,   
       HC_13N                                            
  GBT04C-043 [F B] Scott Ransom
       Timing the Eccentric Millisecond Pulsar Binary in 
       Globular Cluster NGC 1851                         
  GBT06A-004 [ P ] William Reach
       Water Masers from Protostars in IC 1396A          
  GBT06A-049 [ P ] Tony Readhead
       Definitive Detection of Excess Arcminute Scale    
       CMB Anisotropies                                  
  GBT06A-027 [F  ] Karen Masters
       Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS  
  GBT06A-028 [F  ] Jack Hewitt
       Mapping Radio Recombination Line Emission Toward  
       SNRs W28 and W44                                  
  GM060      [F  ] J. McKean
       The dark matter density prole of a moderate       
       redshift group                                    
  GBT05C-026 [ P ] Tom Devlin
       Polarization of 30 GHz emission from              
       extra-galactic sources                            
  GBT04A-038 [ P ] Brian Mason
       GBT Observations of Radio Sources in CBI          
       Intrinsic Anisotropy Fields                       
  GBT04A-006 [ P ] Joel Bregman
       X-Ray Astronomy at Radio Wavelengths (Measuring   
       106 K Gas With the NVII Radio Line)               
  GBT06A-009 [ P ] Jim Condon
       H_0 and Dark Energy                               
  GBT01A-005 [ P ] Barry Turner
       A High-resolution Spectral Survey Of Tmc-1 At     
       Q-band                                            
  GBT05C-019 [F  ] Tim Robishaw
       The Galactic Arachnid in the Ursa Major Loop      
  GBT06A-060 [  B] Andrew West
       A Search for HI Associated with New Milky Way     
       Companions                                        
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 03/02/2006 - 03/16/2006
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06A-051 Marcel Agueros     8     agueros@astro.washington.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-030 Don Campbell       S     campbell@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-053 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-042 Raghvendra Sahai   K     raghvendra.sahai@jpl.nasa.gov [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06A-032 Jim Braatz         Q     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05A-020 Yancy Shirley      K     yshirley@as.arizona.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest      8     demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-044 Jeremy Darling     3     jdarling@origins.colorado.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05C-041 Marcel Agueros     8     agueros@astro.washington.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05B-042 Michael Kramer     L8    mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-066 David Nidever      L     dnidever@virginia.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT05A-033 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-042 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-020 Tony Remijan       K     aremijan@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov [Phil Jewell]
GBT06A-001 Vincent Fish       C     vfish@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT05B-032 Steve Thorsett     L     thorsett@ucolick.org [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-068 Yancy Shirley      K     yshirley@as.arizona.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT05B-044 Maura McLaughlin   3     mclaughl@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-032 Yancy Shirley      BQ    yshirley@as.arizona.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT05C-065 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT04C-043 Scott Ransom       3     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-014 Andrea Tarchi      K     atarchi@ira.cnr.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT05B-034 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-022 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
BB217      Edward Boyce       C     eboyce@nrao.edu []
GBT05C-023 Fernando Camilo    8     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GM062      M. Orienti         L     orienti@ira.inaf.it []
GBT05C-046 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-049 Tony Readhead      B     acr@astro.caltech.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT06A-027 Karen Masters      L     kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06A-038 Tom Troland        L     troland@pa.uky.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06A-018 Joe McMullin       Q     jmcmulli@nrao.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT06A-009 Jim Condon         K     jcondon@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-029 Trinh Thuan        L     txt@bluecompact.astro.Virginia.EDU [Karen O'Neil]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> February  March     April     May       
    Astronomy ~  527 [162] 613 [405] 542 [492] 477 [326] 
  Maintenance ~   42 [009]  23 [077]  16 [102]  20 [068] 
  Test & Comm ~  104 [020] 102 [042] 147 [046] 144 [039] 
  Un-assigned ~    0         6        17       103       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 0
          On Hold - 22
         Schedule - 71
        Completed - 453


Current backlog [hours prior to 06A*] = 1050
   [2001:4(1), 2002:60(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:182(12), 2005:657(33), 2006:128(3)]
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3138
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06A

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

Microwave Report 17Feb06

Operations:

Projects:

Digital Electronics Status -- Rich

Digital Electronics Status 10 Feb. 2006 – 16 Feb, 2006

***Operations, Problem summary***

No significant problems this week.

***Development***

Cal-Tech Continuum Backend (CCB):

Work continues on the CCB backends at a slow pace. Daughter cards are being tested. The test procedure for the daughter cards is being refined during this testing exercise. Documentation is also being upgraded. The people working on this project have been distracted by active surface problems and illness.

Test Spectrometer

An initial meeting was held with Norrod and Watts to determine the scope of the project.

A high school mentor student is working on the design for a chassis to house the electronics for a 10 MHz and 1 PPs source required for this project. He is making excellent progress.

***Plans***

- Continue CCB construction. - Continue LTA troubleshooting.

Software Status -- Amy

Today ends Week 6 of 6 in the first development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC12006. We released M&C v6.1 on February 15 at 16:30. Release notes were e-mailed to gbtlocal. The Plan of Record for Cycle 2 is available and can be found at PlanOfRecordC22006.

Due to heavy operational support and release preparation, the following MRs were not completed during Cycle 1:

However, these MRs having been rescheduled for Cycle 2 and are currently in development.

Operational support for this week was light.

Change Control Committee -- John

Pulsar Related -- Scott

I helped watch over a Ku-band SPIGOT observation (N. Kanekhar et al) on this morning (which I never got a chance to write up a report on, dammit). It seemed like the IF/LO system was setup correctly (i.e. we were getting signal and saw a pulsar), but a couple frequencies didn't seem to be reported correctly in the database (and gbtstatus). For example, the sky freq was supposed to be 14,800MHz. That is what gbtstatus reported for "Rest Freq", however, "Obs Freq" was 8,800MHz and "Center Freq" was 3,000MHz. I'm not sure what was going on there. Toney came into the control room to check things out, but I never heard if he found anything out...

Other change this was was the renaming of the "pulsar" account to "gbpulsar". Because of an unexpected glitch this caused with a spigot script, I got called very early in the morning to fix the problem! We think things are OK now, but we will have to thoroughly scrub all the SPIGOT scripts both in and out of Astrid.

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Installation of the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) continues at the 43m. There are a very large number of logic checks required. This has taken a good bit of time, but we are progressing about on schedule.

The MIT/LL computer staff arrived and added additional VME boards, and two more Conduate disk drives, each with two disk pack slots. They've updated their software and checked test tones are arriving in the new data paths.

Carla and gang have completed the welding of the trailer to improve RFI shielding effectiveness. All cables have been re-installed and all systems powered back on. They will perform RFI tests after Mike Shields arrives, in two weeks.

Next week John Taylor and 4 other RF engineers arrive to make additional calibration tests. We will be first running tests requiring the 43m in the service tower, then pointing at astronomical sources. We may try some mapping tests.

Mike Shields indicates they hope to have a cooled first stage LNA system ready for installation at the beginning of this summer. Rich Bradley is making some tests of printed circuit board feed that may be suitable for operation in the 300 to 3000 MHz range.

Steve White has completed the design of a IF up/down conversion system that will allow using GASP with the 43m in the frequency range 100 to 2400 MHz.

Any other Business

-- RichardPrestage - 16 Feb 2006

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