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GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting

09 Feb 2007

AGENDA

Upcoming Activities -- Carl

Activities List

Az Track, Antennae Report -- Bob

First 3 wear plates have arrived! I'm celebrating by going skiing today.

We expect a load of crushed stone tomorrow. Harry will show them where to put it.

Mechanics continued to shim track this week.

Observing News -- Ron

We supported 18 projects in 29 observing sessions including a VLB run. The telescope was scheduled for 12.5 hrs of maintenance, 10 hrs of software tests, and 2.5 hrs of spigot/VLB tests.

The big news again for this week was weather related lost time.

The weather-related NLT was during M&C testing.

Scheduling Status -- Carl 

Last Week
=========

Observations for proposals
   GBT07A-074, GBT07A-042, GBT06A-053, 
   GBT06C-051, GBT07A-098, GBT06A-054, 
   GBT07A-102, GBT06C-045, GBT07A-048, 
   GBT07A-015, GBT07A-016, GBT06C-035, 
   GBT07A-104, GBT06C-037, GBT06C-048, 
   BG162     , GBT06C-049, GBT06C-028

Completed proposals
   GBT06A-053, BG162, GBT06C-037

Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
  GBT07A-020 [FP ] Scott Schnee
       The Relationship Between Gas And Dust in the      
       Starless Core TMC-1C                              
  GBT07A-098 [FPB] Fernando Camilo
       Studying the magnetar XTE J1810-197               
  GBT07A-034 [ P ] Jim Braatz
       The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O 
       Masers in SDSS and 2MRS AGNs                      
  GBT07A-089 [  B] Fernando Camilo
       PSR J1833-1034, the Very Young Pulsar in the SNR  
       G21.5-0.9                                         
  GBT06B-032 [  B] Steve Begin
       Timing of the Binary and Millisecond Pulsars in   
       M28                                               
  GBT07A-001 [  B] Alberto Bolatto
       A Search for HI Absorbers in a Sample of          
       Gravitationally Lensed Systems                    
  GBT06C-020 [FP ] Rachel Friesen
       Probing the initial conditions of star formation  
       in Ophiuchus                                      
  GBT06A-056 [ P ] Paul Kondratko
       Are there Unrecognized NGC4258-like Systems Among 
       Known Water Masers in AGN?                        
  GBT06B-044 [  B] Robert Ferdman
       Timing Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the    
       Parkes Multibeam Survey                           
  GBT06B-033 [  B] Jason Hessels
       Completing a 350-MHz Survey of the Galactic Plane 
       for Pulsars and Transients                        
  GBT05C-043 [ P ] Nissim Kanekar
       A blind GBT survey for redshifted molecular       
       absorption                                        
  GBT07A-015 [ P ] Jeff Mangum
       Formaldehyde Densitometry of External Galaxies    
  GBT07A-104 [  B] Peter Martin
       The Spider's Web from Ursa Major to Polaris       
  GBT06C-035 [F  ] Jim Braatz
       The Megamaser Cosmology Project: A Survey for H2O 
       Maser Disks in SDSS AGNs                          
  GBT07A-016 [F B] Jennifer Donovan
       How "Dry" Are Dry Mergers?                        
  BB227      [F  ] Jim Braatz
       Measuring the Extragalactic Distance Scale        
  GBT06C-003 [ P ] Tony Remijan
       Additional Transitions of Interstellar Methyl     
       Isocyanate (CH3NCO)                               
  BM253      [F  ] Emmanuel Momjian
       Resolving the Compact Radio Emission of the       
       Luminous Submillimeter Galaxy GOODS 850-3 at z=1.8
  GBT06C-049 [  B] Karen Masters
       Mapping Matter in the Nearby Universe with 2MASS  
  GBT06B-028 [  B] Ingrid Stairs
       Timing the Planet Pulsar in M4                    
  GBT03C-028 [ P ] Fabian Walter
       The Molecular Gas Content in z>6 Quasars: Probing 
       the End of Cosmic Reionization                    
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup

Contact Information for 02/22/2007 - 03/08/2007
=======================================
Proposal   PI                 Bands Email [NRAO contact]    
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT07A-030 Brian Mason        X     bmason@nrao.edu [Brian Mason]
GBT07A-063 Amanda Kepley      L     kepley@astro.wisc.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT07A-042 Andrea Tarchi      K     a.tarchi@ira.inaf.it [Jim Braatz]
GBT07A-031 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-051 Lincoln Greenhill  K     greenhill@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT07A-010 Bob Mutel          L     robert-mutel@uiowa.edu [Toney Minter]
GBT07A-098 Fernando Camilo    S     fernando@astro.columbia.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06A-054 Paul Demorest      L     demorest@astron.berkeley.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06B-043 Laurent Pagani     K     laurent.pagani@obspm.fr [Larry Morgan]
GBT07A-034 Jim Braatz         K     jbraatz@nrao.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06A-056 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT04C-031 Paul Kondratko     K     pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT05C-043 Nissim Kanekar     Q     nkanekar@nrao.edu [Dana Balser]
GBT07A-036 Yi-nan Chin        C     einmann@astro.phys.tku.edu.tw [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-045 David Champion     S     champion@physics.mcgill.ca [Scott Ransom]
BC162      Giuseppe Cimo      CX    giuseppe.cimo@utas.edu.au []
GBT07A-015 Jeff Mangum        U     jmangum@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT07A-104 Peter Martin       L     pgmartin@cita.utoronto.ca [Jay Lockman]
GBT07A-039 Rick Fisher        L     rfisher@nrao.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT06A-017 Jeremy Lim         Q     jlim@asiaa.sinica.edu.tw [Dana Balser]
GBT04B-014 Paul Kondratko     KU    pkondrat@cfa.harvard.edu [Jim Braatz]
GBT06C-017 Miles Blanton      U     mcb39@physics.unc.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT07A-080 Maura McLaughlin   3     maura.mclaughlin@mail.wvu.edu [Scott Ransom]
GBT06C-018 Ingrid Stairs      LS    istairs@astro.ubc.ca [Scott Ransom]
GBT05C-017 Anish Roshi        B     anish@rri.res.in [Dana Balser]
GBT03C-028 Fabian Walter      Q     walter@mpia.de [Dana Balser]
GBT07A-072 Lisa Wei           L     hwei1@umd.edu [Frank Ghigo]
GBT07A-050 Claudia Cyganowski K     ccyganow@astro.wisc.edu [Toney Minter]

Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> February  March     April     
    Astronomy ~  554 [333] 632 [524] 607 [309] 
  Maintenance ~   43 [026]  41 [059]  32 [051] 
  Test & Comm ~   76 [008]  60 [025]  42 [008] 
     Shutdown ~    0         0        14       
  Un-assigned ~    0        18        29       

Proposal Checkouts
==================
Awaiting checkout - 2
  Active checkout - 1
          On Hold - 14
         Schedule - 93
        Completed - 603


Current backlog [hours prior to 07A*] = 1002
   [2002:0(4), 2003:19(1), 2004:75(21), 2005:423(21), 2006:480(34), 2007:5(1)]
   Backlog excluding 50 hrs of monitoring projects after 07A = 952
Total time to discharge [hours] = 3228
   Includes 108 hours of monitoring after trimester 07A
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 07A

Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger

Operations

A report of a "ghost" in a Q-band observation was reported. No solution yet, and details are still being assembled.

Development

Digital Electronics Status -- Randy

Digital Group Status 03-FEB-07 THRU 09-FEB-07

***Operations, Problem Summary***

No problems to report this week.

Active Surface Maintenance...

No work was done on the Active Surface this week; however, under our newly agreed-to protocol, our group has been checking the status of the system first thing every morning and found no incidents to report this week.

***Development***

Caltech Continuum Backend (CCB)...

Although this project is now considered officially complete with three fully functional units, there are a few cleanup tasks yet to be accomplished such as: Brian's new noise tests, installation of higher capacity cooling fans, testing a few remaining boards, etc., etc., etc.... These tasks will all be done in a deep-background mode as time allows.

Spectrometer LTA Re-design...

The design and layout of the FPGA Adapter PCBA is now complete and all design and CAM files have been zipped up and uploaded to Imagineering for a quote which should be forthcoming in the next day or so.

New Pulsar Backend...

The Cincinnati team had become stalled due to software versioning issues within their development suite. As it turns out, a copy of an older version they required was stashed in my office, so I shipped it to RonDuPlain last Thursday. This seemed to solve the lion's share of their difficulties; however, they're still experiencing problems with the particular version of Simulink they're using; but hope to have this resolved in the next few days. As of now, no new date has been set for our design review.

PTCS...

Some support was offered in installing a pyrgeometer for John Ford. Owing to the fact that the Datataker software used to read this instrument failed, it was decided to set up a system in the basement so that John could continue his coding and testing efforts.

ALMA...

On-going efforts are continuing fairly smoothly on the ALMA front.

***Plans***

Randy

Software Status -- Amy

We are in week six of the first development cycle of 2007 which can be viewed at PlanOfRecordC12007. We are scheduled to release 14 February 2007.

We have regression testing scheduled for (today) the 9th, 1800 to midnight. The reports from our two integration tests are available on the wiki.

Operational and user support was relatively light this week and included:

Modification Requests:

PTCS Status -- PTCS Team

Pulsar Related -- Scott

MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen

Commissioning Plans -- Ron

We think we have hit upon a solution to our Ka-band baseline woes. Up to now, the common wisdom was that we should be firing only one of the noise diodes. When we reduce data when both diodes are used, we seem to get extremely good baselines. For data that had only one diode firing, we also get good baselines when we throw away the data taken through channels that did not have the diode firing.

We're still investigating which observing techniques produce the best data -- phase switching vs. total power, standard nodding vs. subreflector nodding.

Charlie Figura should get a resounding pat on the back since has provided most of the recent labor in these efforts. Since he'll be away for a few weeks, D.J. will be continuing this work.

Any other Business

-- RichardPrestage - 01 Feb 2007

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