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GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

20 January 2006

AGENDA

• Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob
• Observing News -- Ron
• Scheduling Status -- Carl
• Microwave Electronics Status -- John
• Digital Electronics Status -- Rich
• Software Status -- Paul
• Change Control Committee -- John
• Pulsar Related -- Scott
• MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
• Any other Business

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

Observing News -- Ron

We supported 16 projects in 24 observing sessions. The telescope was also scheduled for 14 hrs of maintenance, 11.5 hrs of Ka/CCB tests, and 2 hrs of receiver checkouts. Average setup time was 18 minutes.

We lost 13 hrs, about 8.4% of the time scheduled for science or commissioning. The major causes of lost time were:

• Wrong LO1 frequency : 4.1 hrs
• Winds : 1.8 hrs
• Astrid : 1.2 hrs
• L-band cryo : 1.0 hrs
• IF Manager mislabeling IF's : 1.0 hrs
• Turret wouldn't lock : 0.9 hrs
• Hung DCR : 0.9 hrs
• All others (Human, Az Wrap, Extended setup, Spectrometer, "Fire" crash): 0.9 hrs

Scheduling Status -- Carl

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT06A-043, GBT06A-032, GBT05B-042, 
   GBT06A-046, GBT05C-021, GBT05C-033, 
   GBT05C-056, GBT05C-034, GBT05C-046, 
   GBT05C-004, GBT06A-018, GBT05C-037, 
   GBT05C-016, GBT01A-005, GBT05C-019, 
   GBT05C-009

Completed proposals
   GBT05C-021, GBT05C-034, GBT05C-016, 
   GBT05C-009

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT06A-062 [F  ] Jean-Luc Margot
       Venus spin dynamics                               
  GBT04C-050 [  B] Wendy Lane
       Measurement of Variable Redshifted 21cm Absorption
  GBT06A-044 [F  ] Jeremy Darling
       Intrinsic HI and OH Absorption in Compact Radio   
       Sources at High Redshift                          
  GBT05C-010 [FP ] Yi-nan Chin
       A Search for Interstellar Benzonitrile (C6H5CN)   
       -- A Key Tracer of Benzene                        
  GBT05C-033 [F  ] Marko Krco
       Structure and Formation of the Filamentary Cloud  
       L204                                              
  GBT05C-056 [FP ] Paulo Freire
       A GBT S-band Globular Cluster Survey: Phase B     
  GBT04B-014 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
       Anchoring the Extragalactic Distance Scale        
  GBT05C-014 [ P ] Katie Devine
       Ammonia and CCS Observations of GLIMPSE Infrared  
       Dark Clouds                                       
  GBT05C-015 [ P ] Chris Henkel
       Ammonia in Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies        
  GBT05C-037 [  B] Nissim Kanekar
       Measuring changes in fundamental constants with   
       redshifted OH  lines                              
  GBT05B-019 [  B] Mallory Roberts
       Examining the Intermittent Emission of PSR        
       J1744-3922                                        
  GBT05C-018 [  B] Tim Robishaw
       OH Megamasers in ULIRGs: The Mega-Obvious Place   
       to Look for Zeeman Splitting!                     
  GBT01A-005 [FP ] Barry Turner
       A High-resolution Spectral Survey Of Tmc-1 At     
       Q-band                                            
  GBT05C-019 [FPB] Tim Robishaw
       The Galactic Arachnid in the Ursa Major Loop      
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 02/02/2006 - 02/16/2006
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06A-062 Jean-Luc Margot    X     jlm@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-030 Don Campbell       S     campbell@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT05A-041 Paul Demorest      L8    demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-043 Larry Morgan       L     lmorgan@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT05B-042 Michael Kramer     L8    mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-022 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-066 David Nidever      L     dnidever@virginia.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT05C-042 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05A-011 Scott Ransom       S     sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-001 Vincent Fish       C     vfish@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-013 Jim Braatz         U     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT04C-031 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-010 Yi-nan Chin        C     einmann@astro.phys.tku.edu.tw [Dana Balser]
GBT06A-014 Andrea Tarchi      K     atarchi@ira.cnr.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-023 Fernando Camilo    8     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-049 Tony Readhead      B     acr@astro.caltech.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT05C-046 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-027 Karen Masters      L     kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06A-028 Jack Hewitt        C     j-hewitt@northwestern.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT04A-027 Brian Mason        B     bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT05C-015 Chris Henkel       K     p220hen@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de [Jim Braatz]
GBT04A-038 Brian Mason        B     bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT06A-009 Jim Condon         K     jcondon@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-018 Tim Robishaw       L     robishaw@astro.berkeley.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT01A-005 Barry Turner       Q     bturner@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> January   February  March     April     
    Astronomy ~  546 [166] 538 [376] 597 [401] 537 [451] 
  Maintenance ~   46 [026]  29 [051]  23 [077]  16 [102] 
  Test & Comm ~  150 [015] 106 [043] 101 [041] 145 [040] 
  Un-assigned ~    3         0        23        24       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 1
          On Hold - 23
         Schedule - 80
        Completed - 441


Current backlog [hours prior to 05C*] = 759
   [2001:15(1), 2002:60(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:220(12), 2005:445(17)]
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3555
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 05C

Microwave Electronics Status -- John

• Operations
  • L-Band warmed up. Config file defaulted frig to off, and apparently a hardware failure (not onfirmed) combined to warm up the receiver. Refrigerator replaced while the receiver was warm as it had not been running as cold as it should anyway.
  • Investigated a K-band receiver baseline problem with Dana Balser. The cause of the baseline problem is likely a resonance in the polarizer. We plan to investigate this further when the receiver comes to the lab this summer.
• Projects
  • Ka Band: Combining improving the speed of the phase switch drivers and accommodating the Zpectrometer, progress has been made on the redesign of the phase switch drive hardware and updating software requirements. Hardware design and new software requirements (not extensive, nobody panic yet!) should be finished around the end of the month. Quotes are being finalized on long lead time parts for the Zpectrometer and orders should all be placed by Tuesday the 24th.
  • Converter modules: Expanded range power sampler prototypes have been installed in CMs 4, 8, 11 and 15. The units in CMs 11 and 15 seem to have much less sensitivity than CMs 4 and 8, this will be investigated at the next available maintenance time.
  • Q band: Orders are being placed for parts required for the redesign. Test dewar design is in progress.
  • 3mm: Mechanical layout and thermal analysis of the 3mm receiver's cryostat continued this week, and several mechanical drawings of dewar components (refrigerator adapter, vacuum fittings, waveguide feedthoughs) were completed in Autocad.
  • C band: Work progressed this week on the C-band upgrade (this upgrade is for the purpose of improving baselines), as I studied reports of the baseline problems reported by Fisher, Norrod, and others. I performed a gain/noise analysis of the existing C-band receiver, surveyed commercially-available surface-mount components for the receiver upgrade, and began performing new gain/noise analysis.
  • Zpectrometer: A report detailing Zspectrometer installation options was completed, and sent out for peer review.

Digital Electronics Status -- Rich

***Operations, Problem summary***

No problems

***Development***

Cal-Tech Continuum Backend (CCB):

Work is starting to ramp back up on the CCB backends. Jason is testing “Daughter Cards” and Randy is making up a list of modifications required on the remaining Master Cards. The modifications entail mostly installing components that were not installed by Data Translation.

Work on the remaining 2 power supplies is going very slowly because Nathan has been operating the 140’ quite a bit.

Long Term Accumulator

Work continues at about a 20%FTE level. Detailed timing is being studied on one of the spare LTAs to try to understand why it gets occasional errors.

***Plans***

- Continue CCB construction.
- Continue LTA troubleshooting.

Software Status -- Paul

Today ends Week 3 of 6 in the first development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC12006.

Work on the major changes in our infrastructure continues to make progress (moving to a different OS, upgrading the C++ compiler, and upgrading the Python environment). The Control System has now been built with new compiler. The Spectrometer and DCR backends have been successfully tested on the new OS, and hosts earth, wind, and fire are now dual-bootable between current and target OS's. We have also generated and partially tested the newest Python environment using these changes and (as well as the new plotter).

Modification requests are still being written for quality checks and GFM upgrades for the CCB. An MR is also being written for developing a GFM Spectrometer Plugin for Engineers. Penn Array developement continues: the IRC and MarkIII have been updated before GSFC makes significant changes to the IRC code. Eighty percent of the IFPath portion of the gbtstatus upgrades are completed. Work has also started for release of GBTIDL version 2.0, which will be released by the end of next month. Development of Flagging for version 2.0 is almost complete.

This week saw more Operational Support items then usual. These included:

• Problems during the PF2 receiver checkout concerning frequencies.
• Recovering from DCR failure.
• Recovering from host Fire failure.
• LO2 FITS files not in agreement with the config tool.
• Configuration messages not being recorded in Turtle
• Further attempts to diagnose cause of LO1 frequency problems.
• Recovery of simulator and leeloo failures.
• SDFITS not handling wrap-around for antenna positions.
• Incorrect sampler2log file names

Change Control Committee -- John

No meeting this week due to staff absences.

Pulsar Related -- Scott

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Any other Business

-- RichardPrestage - 19 Jan 2006