GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
- Base Plates have been formed, rolled, quenched and tempered at Mittal Steel's Coatesville, PA plant. As of Monday, 7 were burned to rough shape, inspected, and ready for shipment. I expect at least double that many by Monday. Continental's project supervisor will be here today (I may not be at the meeting) to view the site, review their plans and our plans, and then we will meet him in Coatesville Monday to inspect the plates and test reports. Continental's new milling machine arrived Monday, and the manufacturer's field crew is putting it together. It will be ready for the plates when they arrive and finish preliminary tasks.
- FEMCO has started cutting bar stock to length for the studs.
- I've been getting equipment ready to work on verifying the ultrasonic elongation measuring equipment.
We serviced 11 projects in 26 observing sessions. The telescope was also scheduled for 16 hrs of maintenance and 8 hrs of PTCS pointing. Of the 14 operator shifts, 8 had lost-time problems. About 5 hrs, about 3.3% of the time scheduled for observing and tests, were lost to problems, more than half of which was due to winds. Lost time was due to:
- Winds : 2.8 hrs
- Computing : 1.0 hrs
- Spectral Processor : 0.4 hrs
- Astrid/Grail (4 instances): 0.3 hrs
- Observer late : 0.3 hrs
- Spectrometer (3 instances) : 0.2 hrs
- RFI : 0.1 hrs
More details will be found under 'Commissioning News'
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
GBT06C-051, GBT06A-053, GBT06A-054,
GBT06C-053, GBT06C-021, GBT06C-032,
GBT06B-037, GBT06C-036, GBT06C-048,
GBT06C-037, GBT06C-049, GBT06C-018
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GBT06C-051 [ P ] Lincoln Greenhill
Monitoring 2 NGC4258-like Masers: Measurement of
Distances / Constraint of LCDM
GBT06B-042 [ B] Nissim Kanekar
The nature of damped Lyman-alpha systems, as
traced by their spin temperature.
GBT06A-065 [ P ] Rachel Friesen
Probing the initial conditions of star formation
in Ophiuchus
GBT06B-032 [ B] Steve Begin
Timing of the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in
M28
GBT06C-053 [ B] Martin Zwaan
A search for molecules in CaII absorbers
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
GBT06C-021 [ P ] Erik Rosolowsky
A COMPLETE Census of Dense Cores in Perseus
GBT06C-032 [F B] Peter Martin
The Galactic foreground at the North Ecliptic Pole
GBT06C-012 [ B] Steve Curran
A Wide-Band Search of the Source of the
Obscuration of Reddened Quasars
GBT06C-023 [F ] Bruce Campbell
High-Resolution Radar Studies of the Moon's
Mega-Regolith
GBT06C-035 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O
Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs
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
GBT06C-037 [ P ] Charlie Lada
Probing the Origin of Dense Cores and the Stellar
IMF
GBT06C-048 [F B] Nissim Kanekar
HI 21cm absorption in strong MgII and CI
absorbers in the redshift desert
GBT06C-049 [ B] Karen Masters
Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS
GBT06B-028 [ B] Ingrid Stairs
Timing the Planet Pulsar in M4
GBT06C-028 [ P ] Brenda Matthews
The Kinetic Temperature of the Class 0 Source
Barnard 1c
GBT06C-006 [ P ] Wouter Vlemmings
Searching for Water-Fountains
GBT06C-008 [ B] Raghunathan Srianand
Search for 21-cm and OH absorption in the DLAs
towards Q 0405-443 (CTS 247)
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 10/26/2006 - 11/09/2006
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill K greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest 8 demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-065 Rachel Friesen K rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-020 Rachel Friesen K rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06B-043 Laurent Pagani K laurent.pagani@obspm.fr [Larry Morgan]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko K pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-021 Erik Rosolowsky K erosolow@cfa.harvard.edu [Ron Maddalena]
GBT06C-032 Peter Martin L pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-011 Steve Curran L sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06C-055 Martin Zwaan 6 mzwaan@eso.org [Larry Morgan]
GBT02A-054 Ingrid Stairs L istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-012 Steve Curran 6 sjc@phys.unsw.edu.au [Carl Bignell]
GBT06A-014 Andrea Tarchi K a.tarchi@ira.inaf.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-035 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-003 Tony Remijan K aremijan@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-036 Claudia Cyganowski K ccyganow@astro.wisc.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-048 Nissim Kanekar 8 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-037 Charlie Lada K clada@cfa.harvard.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-038 Jay Lockman L jlockman@nrao.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-016 Fernando Camilo S fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-027 Walter Brisken K wbrisken@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-049 Karen Masters L kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-039 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-018 Ingrid Stairs LS istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
BM251 Neal Miller L nmiller@pha.jhu.edu []
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> October November December January
Astronomy ~ 545 [329] 450 [373] 536 [319] 561 [345]
Maintenance ~ 75 [017] 45 [051] 52 [034] 55 [068]
Test & Comm ~ 106 172 [007] 82 54 [016]
Shutdown ~ 0 36 36 0
Un-assigned ~ 23 19 43 82
Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
Active checkout - 0
On Hold - 16
Schedule - 81
Completed - 555
Current backlog [hours prior to 06C*] = 1014
[2001:2(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:107(7), 2005:471(20), 2006:415(23)]
Backlog excluding 800 hrs of monitoring projects after 06C = 214
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2980
Includes 1056 hours of monitoring after trimester 06C
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06C
A water-cooled compressor was setup temporarily for use with the Penn Array receiver.
Q-band Receiver: The unstable channel was corrected by replacing the cryo LNA. Measurements of noise temperature and cal values, and
gathering additional spectrometry data nears completion. Scientific staff
continue with data analysis.
Ka Receiver: The front-end and CCB were installed on Wednesday. There are still issues with the CCB and front-end phase switching transients that will be investigated further on the bench.
C-band : The new cryostat assembly is about 80% done. First cooldown next week, perhaps.
Digital Group Status 07-OCT-06 THRU 13-OCT-06
***Operations, Problem Summary***
Active Surface...
No work was done on the Active Surface this week.
Quadrant Detector...
- The new version of firmware developed by John Ford and Jason Ray was installed in the actual QD GDAQ with very promising results... so far there have been no further RESET messages.
- Due to limited access and other higher priority tasks, work on the previously reported bad thermocouple was again delayed until next week.
PTCS...
Temperature sensor gbtts3_2001 was replaced and is now back on line. Analysis of the unit which was replaced indicated a failed RS-232 driver chip. When this chip was replaced, the unit began working properly again.
***Development***
Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB)...
- Construction of CCB #3 is still underway with a newly revised completion date of 20-OCT-06.
- CCB #1 was re-installed along with the Ka Band Receiver on Wednesday and is fully functional.
Spectrometer LTA Re-design...
Work continues on the LTA re-design project with significant progress being made toward completion of a simplified block diagram. Drawings are about 95% complete and written documentation will be completed over the weekend.
Lab Spectrometer...
John Ford reported on Thursday that the Lab Spectrometer was "broken" and wouldn't power up properly. No further news on this at this time...
ALMA (As reported by Jason Ray)...
- An order has been placed with Data Translation to produce 48 circuit board assemblies at a total cost of $32,000.00!!! At this point there is no firm delivery date; however, they plan to provide one once they've assessed parts availability.
- An effort was made to resurrect a thermal test chamber from the basement and use it to test certain of the known temperature sensitive circuits. At this point, the chamber isn't functioning and will require some troubleshooting, repairs, etc.
- Our shop delivered 11 of the rev C bias module housings which look good.
***Plans***
- Continue Active Surface maintenance as required...
- Repair bad thermocouple reported on the Quadrant Detector...
- Continue construction of CCB #3...
- Continue work on LTA re-design...
- Continue ALMA support as needed...
- Troubleshoot thermal chamber...
Randy
This ends the 2nd week of 6 in the seventh development cycle of 2006 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC72006. We are scheduled to release at the end of January 2007. Items deemed ready for release before that time will be patched in after they have been fully tested.
AmyShelton and BobGarwood will be away at ADASS next week.
Operational support was relatively light this week and included:
- Lab Spectrometer support
- Responded to GFM not calculating pointing corrections; turned out to be NFS errors between ariel and gbtdata.
- Investigate reports that weekly dish is not working.
- Addressed MMConverter MCB/SIB problem.
Modification Requests:
- MRs ready for integration/regression testing:
- MRs ready for sponsor testing:
- MRs under development
- MRs under CCC review:
- MRs being written:
- Modify SDFITS to correctly show Spectrometer cross-polarization data (ModificationRequest2C706)
- MR nearly finished, waiting for feedback from Heiles and Robishaw. Design changes to sdfits seem low impact.
- Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (ModificationRequest3C706)
- Attempting to create a new Python build with most recent wxPython release and listing points of possible hang-ups on both the client and server sides.
- GFM/Turtle Upgrade - Remove use of LPCs.conf file (ModificationRequest4C706)
- Working on the MR and on analyzing the impacted code.
- Develop New Pointing Pre-Processing Application (ModificationRequest5C706)
- Successfully identified the source of differences in offset values between Glish and GFM pointing code. Writing PTCS Project Note to document findings. Supplied modified python script to FrankGhigo for quick look processing of latest pointing observation session (09 Oct 2006).
- Other Activities:
- Dynamic Scheduling - Analysis and evolution of requirements begun. Meetings everyday.
- Penn Array Commissioning Support - Worked on the housekeeping software log file format; ready for patching into the on-line system. Green now up and running RHE3 as a development system. IRC is parsing data.
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
Week of Regular Spacecraft tracking. All appears OK.
Upgrading the real-time monitor capability for intensities.
Now the latest 24 hours of intensities are on-line at
http://www.gb.nrao.edu/mlln/bbc
Preparing documents for planning 43m development priorities.
Also examining design of a 43m holography receiver.
Will need a new backend for the holography receiver.
Dan Werthimer's hardware may be a good choice.
Ka-band was installed this week and commissioning will begin next week with some functional/Tcal/Tsys tests followed by some narrow line (galactic) test observations. All our lab baseline tests for Ka- and Q-band look extremely better than the same tests from early summer. So far, these tests used room temperature loads but yesterday we have our first trial of a baseline test using a cold load.
Penn Array is having cryogenics problems. The team had the telescope for commisioning tests this morning and will have the telescope today for working on the problem.
- 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 Cband slot
- Sept 11 - Oct 27 : Penn Array commissioning -- 1 night/week, A-weather, dynamically scheduled. 8 nights max.
- Sept : Ka, Q-band, Zpectrometer lab tests
- Week of Oct 2 - week of Oct 12 : Penn Array backup daytime engineering time : 4 day-times max.
- 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 was , Zpectrometer on telescope where X was
- Week of Oct. 30 : Q-band on telescope
- Oct 31 : Fixed maintenence day for Zpectrometer checkout
- Week of Nov. 6 : Penn Array down, C-band up in its place.
- Nov 6 - Dec 14 : Q-band commissioning -- 1 night/week, A-weather, dynamically scheduled. 3 nights max.
- 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.
- 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: week of November 7
- Penn Array, Install: week of Sep 11 , Remove: week of Oct 31
- Ka Install : week of Oct 9
- Zpectrometer Install: week of Oct 23; Remove: Week of Dec 4
- Ku Remove: on or before week of Oct 23 ; Install: week of Dec 4
- X band moved to Ku slot: on or before week of Oct 23
- Qband, Install: week of Oct 30
-- RichardPrestage - 12 Oct 2006
Revision r1.9 - 13 Oct 2006 - 16:32 GMT - AmyShelton
Parents: WebHome > CommissioningMeetings
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