GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
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- We now have 50 pieces of steel that will become baseplates! Dennis and I went to Mittal Steel and inspected 18 of the plates this week with a representative from Continental Field Systems. All of the plates exceeded our expectations. We specified a minimum of 50,000 psi yield strength, and no plate is less than 61,000 psi. The toughness of the steel is great. The plates are very flat and straight as well. We will be going back late next week likely to inspect more. The 18 plates are making their way to Continental's shop in Savannah for machining and welding.
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- We also stopped in Bridgewater to inspect a facility that could refurbish splice plates. We are interested in this shop because of their proximity.
A very busy week with 19 projects and an unprecedented 35 observing sessions, including radar runs. The telescope was also scheduled for 24.5 hrs of Penn Array commissioning, 5 hrs of maintenance, and 1.5 hrs of receiver checkouts.
A fair number of problems this week with 5.7 hrs of lost time, about 3.4% of the time scheduled for science and commissioning. Only 3 operator shifts did not have problems. The causes of lost time were:
- Computing (4 instances) : 1.6 hrs
- Rain (delaying a feed installation): 0.7 hrs
- Astrid (4 instances) : 0.7 hrs
- Winds (2 instances) : 0.7 hrs
- Spectral Processor WaveTek? : 0.6 hrs
- Spigot Setup : 0.6 hrs
- Active Surface (2 instances) : 0.2 hrs
- Az Transducer : 0.3 hrs
- Turret/M&C software confusion : 0.3 hrs
Except for the computing problems, which seemed to be much worse than in recent months, and Astrid problems, the rest were one-off occurrences.
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
GBT06C-051, GBT06A-065, GBT06B-032,
GBT06B-033, GBT06C-032, GBT06B-044,
GBT06C-021, GBT06C-012, GBT06C-023,
GBT06C-035, GBT05C-023, GBT06B-037,
GBT06C-048, GBT06C-037, GBT06B-028,
GBT06C-049, GBT06C-028, GBT06C-006,
GBT06C-018
Completed proposals
GBT06C-023, GBT06C-028
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GBT06A-054 [ B] Paul Demorest
Long-term Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars
GBT06A-065 [ P ] Rachel Friesen
Probing the initial conditions of star formation
in Ophiuchus
GBT06B-042 [F ] Nissim Kanekar
The nature of damped Lyman-alpha systems, as
traced by their spin temperature.
GBT06B-044 [F ] Robert Ferdman
Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the
Parkes Multibeam Survey
GBT06C-032 [F B] Peter Martin
The Galactic foreground at the North Ecliptic Pole
GBT06C-011 [ B] Steve Curran
A Pure Molecular Cloud at z~0.13?
GBT06C-012 [F ] Steve Curran
A Wide-Band Search of the Source of the
Obscuration of Reddened Quasars
GBT06C-035 [ P ] Jim Braatz
The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O
Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs
GBT06C-036 [ P ] Claudia Cyganowski
Radio mapping of infrared interstellar bubbles
GBT06C-048 [ B] Nissim Kanekar
HI 21cm absorption in strong MgII and CI
absorbers in the redshift desert
GBT06C-037 [ P ] Charlie Lada
Probing the Origin of Dense Cores and the Stellar
IMF
GBT06C-016 [F ] Fernando Camilo
Studying the magnetar XTE J1810-197
GBT06C-049 [F B] Karen Masters
Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS
GBT06B-018 [ B] Michael Kramer
Timing and General Relativity in the Double
Pulsar System
GBT06C-008 [F ] 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 11/02/2006 - 11/16/2006
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill K greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-052 Scott Ransom S sransom@nrao.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-065 Rachel Friesen K rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06B-032 Steve Begin S sbegin@physics.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-020 Rachel Friesen K rfriesen@uvastro.phys.uvic.ca [Toney Minter]
GBT06B-043 Laurent Pagani K laurent.pagani@obspm.fr [Larry Morgan]
GBT06B-055 Nissim Kanekar 8 nkanekar@nrao.edu []
GBT06B-033 Jason Hessels 8 jhessels@science.uva.nl [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-044 Robert Ferdman L ferdman@phas.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko K pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-032 Peter Martin L pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-021 Erik Rosolowsky K erosolow@cfa.harvard.edu [Ron Maddalena]
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]
GBT05C-023 Fernando Camilo 8 fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-035 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-026 Nissim Kanekar 6 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-003 Tony Remijan K aremijan@nrao.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-037 Charlie Lada K clada@cfa.harvard.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06C-048 Nissim Kanekar 6 nkanekar@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT06C-049 Karen Masters L kmasters@cfa.harvard.edu [Larry Morgan]
GBT06C-038 Jay Lockman L jlockman@nrao.edu [Jay Lockman]
GBT06C-016 Fernando Camilo S fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-018 Michael Kramer 8 mkramer@jb.man.ac.uk [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-039 Jim Braatz K jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-018 Ingrid Stairs LS istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-019 Toney Minter L tminter@nrao.edu [Toney Minter]
BM251 Neal Miller L nmiller@pha.jhu.edu []
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> October November December January
Astronomy ~ 552 [199] 454 [394] 542 [318] 566 [345]
Maintenance ~ 66 [017] 45 [051] 52 [034] 55 [068]
Test & Comm ~ 116 172 [007] 87 54 [016]
Shutdown ~ 0 36 36 0
Un-assigned ~ 14 15 32 76
Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 0
Active checkout - 0
On Hold - 16
Schedule - 72
Completed - 564
Current backlog [hours prior to 06C*] = 992
[2001:2(1), 2003:19(1), 2004:107(7), 2005:471(20), 2006:393(21)]
Backlog excluding 800 hrs of monitoring projects after 06C = 192
Total time to discharge [hours] = 2849
Includes 1056 hours of monitoring after trimester 06C
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 06C
Two PF1 feed changes this week, Tuesday and Friday. Ka-band on the telescope but commissioning observations not yet started. Digital and computer groups worked to figure out why the PC terminal in the Receiver Room is glacial. Apparent problems with the feed defroster and the PF FEB temperature controller are being investigated today.
Q-band Receiver: Q-band installation today.
C-band : The new cryostat is assembled. First cooldown was successful, and RF tests should start next week. Integrated receiver design continues. Tests of RF components over temperature nears completion and channel system design is beginning.
Other: Upgrades of the Converter/Filter modules continue at rate of 1-2 per week.
Digital Group Status 14-OCT-06 THRU 20-OCT-06
***Operations, Problem Summary***
Active Surface...
No work was done on the Active Surface; however, some time was spent reviewing Fred Schwab's proposed plan to measure about 100 panels. Bob Anderson was contacted about scheduling this effort since about 20 of the panels will need to be measured at birdbath position.
Quadrant Detector...
Work on the previously reported bad thermocouple is scheduled to happen this Friday (today), weather permitting.
PTCS...
- Some time was spent helping Steve White sort out a problem with a RH sensor located in the Metrology Lab.
- A document was prepared and given to John Ford which details the locations and orientations of the inclinometers, accelerometers, and the Quadrant Detector.
MCB...
- Ray Creager reported that the newly constructed Intelligent Converter works properly.
- Jason Ray wrote and qualified a program which will allow us to independently test Intelligent Converters in the future without burdening the Software Group.
***Development***
Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB)...
Construction of CCB #3 is still underway with a newly revised completion date of 27-OCT-06.
Spectrometer LTA Re-design...
The Design Review was held successfully Wednesday of this week. Randy has agreed to revisit the project milestones and estimated schedule in an effort to identify means by which we can trim the schedule and complete the project during next summer's shutdown.
Lab Spectrometer...
John Ford reported last week 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)...
- On-going efforts are continuing smoothly on the ALMA front.
- A total of 31 of the 51-pin connectors were taken to our shop for some final "tweaking"... all 31 were completed by Thursday with excellent results.
***Plans***
- Continue Active Surface maintenance as required...
- Repair bad thermocouple reported on the Quadrant Detector...
- Continue construction of CCB #3...
- Revisit milestones and schedule for the LTA Re-design Project ...
- Continue ALMA support as needed...
Randy
This ends the 3rd 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 were away at ADASS most of this week. It was very interesting and worth the trip to Tucson.
Operational support was relatively busy this week and included:
- Supported repair of Spectral Processor synthesizer.
- Supported astronomers config_tool questions concerning Ka configurations and default keyword values.
- Added a new user to the observation management database.
- Investigated messages complaining about missing CCB connections; it turns out that the new cabling file had not been loaded into the IFManager.
- Investigated a bug where RA in the GO FITS keywords is in decimal hours instead of decimal degrees.
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. No progress this week as BobGarwood was attending ADASS.
- Investigate & Fix Cause of Astrid Hang-ups (ModificationRequest3C706)
- Continuing refactoring and optimization, see MR, a living document.
- GFM/Turtle Upgrade - Remove use of LPCs.conf file (ModificationRequest4C706)
- RamonCreager has a draft MR, written through the design section. Some prototyping/investigative work is being done to complete the MR.
- Develop New Pointing Pre-Processing Application (ModificationRequest5C706)
- Writing PTCS Project Note (PTCSPN52) to document findings regarding differences between glish code and prototype Python code. RonGrider coordinated with RamonCreager regarding refactoring changes to code that will impact his work on ModificationRequest4C706.
- Other Activities:
- Dynamic Scheduling - Analysis and evolution of requirements begun. Meetings everyday. Making progress on defining terms and selection rules.
- Penn Array Commissioning Support - Green now up and running RHE3 as a development system. IRC is parsing data.
- Track Model Support - JoeBrandt wrote an email describing the processing and algorithms used in antenna pointing corrections. He also went over the track model corrections and database format with FrankGhigo.
- Balancing Project - MelindaMello investigated why theoretical balancing performance did not match expected performance. One of the issues is that a sampler can not be read immediately after an attenuator is set because of setup/stability issues. The current wait time in the IFRack is 50 msec. MelindaMello has test time scheduled for next week for some tests.
- Assist CarlBignell in migrating from dbase to MySQL - MikeMcCarty started placing notes on SchedulingSoftware wiki. He met with CarlBignell a couple of times (see wiki for details).
- e2e Support (Common User Database) - PaulMarganian started work with Stephan Witz, Oct 11. They created a site for discussion. Talks continue at slow pace.
- Business Office System - Project Charter updated. NRAO User Database end progressing (see e2e notes above). Still no progress on People Soft end - not expected until next week (Oct 17). MikeMcCarty is getting brought up to speed on the project (reading project charter and talking to PaulMarganian).
This past week, Ryan and I made very significant progress on the 8-bit spigot modes. We got beautiful looking spectra using the default lag scalings and offsets. There is a strange problem with the calibration, though, that completely messes things up when you calibrate. We'll hopefully test a fix for this Friday afternoon.
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
This week we had some trouble with rapid changes
in the station time (computer deimos) that led
to some erratic tracking of fast moving spacecraft.
A software work around is in place, but we might
consider a hardware upgrade to the time reference.
Peak intensity software for logging/mapping improved.
The commissioning plans are still holding true. The weather was great for a Penn Array run last Friday. They had a reasonable run Wednesday night. Many of their cryogenic problems seem to be resolved. We had some CCB tests Thursday morning. Q-band is being installed today. Tonight will be shared between Penn Array and our first night with Ka-band commissioning.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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
- Penn Array, Install: week of Sep 11 , Remove: no later than week of Oct 31
- Ka 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
- X band moved to Ku slot: on or before week of Oct 23
- Qband, Install: on or before the week of Oct 30
-- RichardPrestage - 19 Oct 2006
Revision r1.9 - 20 Oct 2006 - 13:48 GMT - AmyShelton
Parents: WebHome > CommissioningMeetings
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