GB . Observing . CommissioningMeeting06Jun30

GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

- We've been busier than a cat in a litter box. Except for the painters and the structural inspectors. Both crews lost 2 and 1/2 days this week due to weather and the observing run Thursday. Painters worked in the servo room and on the 43 meter a little this week.
- I reviewed bids and recommended awards for seven splice plates and stud tensioning equipment for the track project.
- Jeremy and Bob Goldizen have the tensile testing machine up and running.
- I have been becoming familiar with the ultrasonic bolt meter.

- 43 Meter.
- Mechanics and Preston changed or cleaned filters this week.
- I reviewed bids and recommended award for spring plates. Two of the bids were less than half of the engineering estimate. This was due to the simpler material process for the material. If this material proves satisfactory, we can order more!

We supported 15 projects in 25 observing sessions, including a VLB and radar run. Average setup time was the standard 12 min. The telescope was also scheduled for 14 hrs of software tests, associated with the new release, and 38.5 hrs of maintenance.

Lost time was 1.8 hrs, about 1.5% of the time scheduled for astronomy. 8 of the 14 operator shifts had no problems, 4 had problems, and 2 had no-lost-time issues. The problems this week were:

Spectral Processor (2 incidents) : 0.6 hrs
Astrid lockouts, Turtle restarts, etc (5 incidents) : 1.1 hrs
No-lost-time problems : Winds/Lightning from rain storm, SDFITS filler, Astrid

Scheduling Status -- Carl

Last 3 Weeks
=============

Observations for proposals
   GBT06B-051, GBT06B-040, GBT06A-063, 
   GBT06B-030, GBT06A-053, GBT06B-020, 
   GBT06B-031, GD021     , GBT06B-021, 
   GBT06B-032, GBT05B-042, GBT06B-044, 
   GBT06B-033, GBT05C-042, GBT06B-022, 
   BU031     , GBT06B-045, GB058     , 
   GBT06A-046, GBT06B-023, GBT06B-035, 
   GBT05B-034, GBT05C-022, GBT06A-026, 
   GBT06B-049, GBT06B-028, GBT05B-028, 
   GBT06B-029, GBT06B-019, GBT06A-070, 
   GBT06A-072, GBT06A-061

Completed proposals
   GBT06B-051, GBT06A-063, GBT06B-022, 
   GBT06B-023, GBT05C-022, GBT06A-026, 
   GBT05B-028, GBT06B-029, GBT06A-061

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT06B-050 [F  ] A.J. Heroux
       Green Bank REU Student GBT Exploratory Time       
  GBT06B-040 [F  ] Nissim Kanekar
       A Targeted High Frequency Search for Pulsars at   
       the Galactic Center                               
  GBT06B-030 [F  ] Peter Martin
       Characterizing Dust Evolution in Intermediate     
       Velocity Clouds                                   
  GBT06A-054 [F  ] Paul Demorest
       Long-term Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars 
  GBT05C-042 [F  ] Scott Ransom
       Timing the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in      
       NGC6440 and NGC6441                               
  GBT06B-033 [F  ] Jason Hessels
       Completing a 350-MHz Survey of the Galactic Plane 
       for Pulsars and Transients                        
  GBT06B-044 [F  ] Robert Ferdman
       Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the    
       Parkes Multibeam Survey                           
  GBT06A-046 [F  ] Glen Langston
       A search for the Largest Interstellar Molecule,   
       HC_13N                                            
  GBT02A-053 [F B] Carl Heiles
       Magnetic fields in Photodissociation regions from 
       Zeeman splitting of Carbon Recombination Lines    
  GBT06A-014 [ P ] Andrea Tarchi
       H2O vs Continuum in the Megamaser 3C403:          
       Reverberation Mapping of the Nucleus              
  GBT06B-035 [F  ] Brian Kent
       ALFALFA HI Clouds:  Milky Way HVCs or Virgo       
       Cluster Harassment Remnants?                      
  GBT06B-014 [F  ] Paulo Freire
       Continued timing of the eccentric binary system   
       in the globular cluster NGC 1851                  
  GBT05C-023 [F  ] Fernando Camilo
       PSR J1833-1034, the Very Young Pulsar in the SNR  
       G21.5-0.9                                         
  GBT06B-037 [F  ] Joel Weisberg
       Probing the Small-Scale Structure of Molecular    
       Gas with Pulsar B1641-45                          
  GBT06B-049 [F  ] Jean-Luc Margot
       High-precision measurements of the spin of Mercury
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 07/13/2006 - 07/27/2006
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06B-040 Nissim Kanekar     U     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-030 Peter Martin       L     pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06B-020 Karen O'Neil       L     koneil@nrao.edu [Karen O'Neil]
GBT06B-031 Michael Muno       8     mmuno@astro.ucla.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT05B-042 Michael Kramer     L8    mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-032 Steve Begin        S     sbegin@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-044 Robert Ferdman     L     ferdman@phas.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-033 Jason Hessels      8     hessels@physics.mcgill.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-012 Loris Magnani      L     loris@physast.uga.edu [Ron Maddalena]
BU031      Jim Ulvestad       S     julvesta@nrao.edu []
GBT06A-046 Glen Langston      U     glangsto@nrao.edu [Glen Langston]
GBT06B-045 Jack Hewitt        L     j-hewitt@northwestern.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT02A-053 Carl Heiles        LSC   cheiles@astron.berkeley.edu []
GBT05B-034 Ingrid Stairs      L     istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-035 Brian Kent         L     bkent@astro.cornell.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06B-026 Julia Deneva       XC    deneva@astro.cornell.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-016 Sandra Bruenken    U     sbruenken@cfa.harvard.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06B-038 Dick Crutcher      L     crutcher@uiuc.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06B-006 Carl Gottlieb      UX    cgottlieb@cfa.harvard.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06B-019 Toney Minter       L     tminter@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06A-070 Fernando Camilo    CUSX8 fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-071 Fernando Camilo    L     fernando@astro.columbia.edu []
GBT06A-072 Vicky Kaspi        S     vkaspi@physics.mcgill.ca []

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> June      July      August    September 
    Astronomy ~  454       511 [126] 386 [063] 446 [282] 
  Maintenance ~  174       145       200        40 [068] 
  Test & Comm ~   92        85 [014] 115 [005] 154 [021] 
  Un-assigned ~    0         4        43        81       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
  Active checkout - 0
          On Hold - 20
         Schedule - 69
        Completed - 510


Current backlog [hours prior to 06B*] = 1104
   [2001:2(1), 2002:60(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:107(7), 2005:544(23), 2006:372(20)]
   Backlog excluding 139 hrs of monitoring projects after 06B = 965
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2653
   Includes 419 hours of monitoring after trimester 06B
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06B

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

Operations

The X-band model 22 refrigerator was serviced this week. No other operational issues.

Development

High Frequency Receivers: We continue to test the Q-band receiver with the Lab Spectrometer. Detailed progress reports are on the wiki at:

http://wiki.gb.nrao.edu/bin/view/Projects/SpectralBaselinesKaQBand

The Ka-band receiver continuum performance is reported to be much improved - we await a detailed report from B. Mason. The receiver will be turned off next week and work on installation of the zpectrometer taps and upgrade to the phase switch drivers begins. Several MMIC amp assemblies for the receiver have been completed.

Digital Electronics Status -- Randy

Digital Group Status 23-June-06 THRU 30-June-06

***Operations, Problem Summary***

No significant problems to report...

Summer maintenance continued with lots of work being done on the active surface, including replacement of two LVDT's and seven motors under the surface. In addition, the installation of a new fiber cable from Weather 2 to the Pintle Room was completed and Weather 2 was brought back on-line.

***Development***

Cal-Tech Continuum Backend (CCB):

The 2nd CCB has now been fully re-assembled; has successfully undergone bench testing; and awaits further testing with the Ka Band Receiver.

Lab Spectrometer

The Lab Spectrometer appears to have some remaining issues which result in 100MHz comb artifacts appearing in the spectra along with occasional ACF spikes and resultant ringing. Roger seems to think it's a manageable situation, so we'll most likely wait until John Ford returns after the 4th of July to tackle this issue (no change from last week's report).

ALMA

John Ford's summer student, Manasseh Obi, continued work on a detailed, predictive noise analysis of the bias board with help and input from Randy and Jason.

***Plans***

- Begin construction of CCB #3...
- Evaluate Tektronix scope...
- Continue Active Surface maintenance...
- Continue ALMA support as needed...

Randy

Software Status -- Amy

This ends Week 7 of 7 in the fourth development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC42006. Integration testing was successfully conducted this week; See the report for the first integration testing session and the report for the second integration testing session for details. Regression tests were successfully conducted on Sunday, June 25; See the report for details. We released M&C v6.4 on Wednesday, June 28. Release notes for M&C v6.4 are available and were e-mailed to gbtlocal. We also released a patch to GBTIDL, v2.0.1. Release notes for GBTIDL v2.0.1 are available as well.

Operational support relatively light for this week and included:

Assisted in testing some new observing scripts for ToneyMinter

We spent a lot of time this week reviewing and interviewing candidates for our open software position. Because the wiki is public, I will include no further details in this report but I will be happy to answer any questions in person.

Pulsar Related -- Scott

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Spacecraft tracking will restart on July 5. MIT/LL continues hardware/software testing.

Any other Business

Topic CommissioningMeeting06Jun30 . { Edit | Attach | Ref-By | Printable | Diffs | r1.7 | > | r1.6 | > | r1.5 | More }

Revision r1.7 - 30 Jun 2006 - 13:25 GMT - GlenLangston Parents: WebHome > CommissioningMeetings	Content copyright © 1999-2007 by the contributing authors. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors.