GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting
AGENDA
Activities List
We have all 4 sections of track installed this morning in their final positions. 2 octants have their splice plates grouted in place, and the other two octants are being formed this morning. Forming for base plate grouting should begin later today as well. This means that we are close to the end of Phase 1, and should rotate the telescope to 192.45 degrees sometime in the latter part of next week! We've had to work through several conditions that were a surprise, including changes to welding procedures, alignment of the plates, foundation condition, surface defects in fasteners, and so on, but we feel like the worst is behind us in this phase. We expect the phase 2 work to proceed smoother and, hopefully, quicker.
We have experienced a failure in the lower elevator cable, which has interrupted service several times this week. Bob and the mechanics are in the process of replacing it this morning.
The painters are making trendous progress, both on the upper feed arm and around the alidade. You can see the difference.
There was some lost time to 'problems' this week:
- Servo : 1.9 hrs
- Tour for Fire Protection Co. : 1.9 hrs
- Winds : 0.5 hrs
- Spigot : 0.1 hrs
Last Week
=========
Observations for proposals
GBT07A-053
Next Week
=========
Observations scheduled for **
GBT07A-053 [F ] Dunc Lorimer
A 350-MHz drift-scan survey for pulsars with the
GBT
** Scheduled as F-ixed, P-rimary, B-ackup
Contact Information for 07/05/2007 - 07/19/2007
=======================================
Proposal PI Bands Email [NRAO contact]
---------- ------------------ ----- --------------------
GBT07B-012 Dunc Lorimer 3 Duncan.Lorimer@mail.wvu.edu [Toney Minter]
Scheduled hours [backup]
========================
Category/Month-> June July
Astronomy ~ 369 488
Maintenance ~ 347 203
Test & Comm ~ 5 54
Un-assigned ~ 0 0
Proposal Checkouts #[hrs]*
=========================
Awaiting checkout - 0[0]
Active checkout - 0[0]
On Hold - 0[0]
Schedule - 76[3461]
Completed - 491[6332]
* All but completed queue applies to GBT only proposals
Current backlog of Reg & RRS proposals [hours prior to 07B*] = 1166
[2005:369(14), 2006:358(18), 2007:440(21)]
Backlog includes 59 hrs of monitoring projects
178 hrs of vlbi projects
Total time to discharge [hours] = 5051
Includes 266 hours++ of monitoring (not Large or Spec) after trimester 07B
1646 hours of Regular & RRS proposals
2937 hours of Large proposals
290 hours of Track Refurbishment proposals
178 hours of VLBI proposals
* Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 07B
++ Time is counted in other break down as well. 07B
- Prime Focus and L band continue to be only receivers available.
- Delay in S band cryogenic filters altered plans for this receiver.
- Will go forth with baseline tests and calibration: ready by August 1.
- Will modify receiver at later time depending upon delivery of filters and telescope schedule.
- Feed defroster work continues and will be complete by August 1.
- C-band will be delayed until S band work is complete: not available until after August 1.
- Ka band stability investigations with Z-spectrometer continued with expected results from hybrid termination tests.
- Drawings are in the shop for all parts necessary for the new feed support system, completion by early July expected.
- Waveguide bends are at NTC-CV for plating. Waveguide twists have been delivered four weeks ahead of promised date.
- Next week we'll warm it up, open the dewar and beginning reassembly in the new configuration
***Operations, Problem Summary***
- No significant events to report this week.
***Maintenance***
Active Surface...
- No work was done on the Active Surface this week.
Subreflector Cabling Upgrades...
- J.D. and Nathan spent the entire week working on subreflector servo system cabling upgrades for Tim Weadon.
***Development***
Spectrometer LTA Re-design...
- Work was suspended temporarily in order to concentrate on employee reviews, project planning, and preparation for our up-coming trip to U.C. Berkeley.
PTCS...
- Smoothed out GDAQ firmware to report timestamps with 100ms resolution and greatly reduced clock offset drift (~4ms per hour).
- Reprogrammed all four GDAQs on the GBT (3 accelerometers and the Quadrant
Detector).
- Replaced Y2 Inclinometer which had a bad internal temperature sensor.
- Shimmed the X2 and Y2 Inclinometers to improve their zero points (from ~400 arcsec down to < 15 arcsec).
ALMA...
- On-going efforts are continuing fairly smoothly on the ALMA front.
***Plans***
- Continue daily check of Spectrometer exhaust fans...
- Participate in CASPER's workshop at U.C. Berkeley...
- Continue development efforts on Advanced Digital Backends Project...
- Continue ALMA efforts as required...
Randy
None
Continuing to work on interlock upgrade
Servo cables to subreflector being installed
PTCS -- PTCS Team
- Engineering
- Astronomy
- Work continues on implementing the new pointing model, holography simulations, and analyzing half-power tracks from April.
- (I will be attending the Disks conference during today's meeting. - Todd)
Data taking still going well...
Disks are filling up rapidly...
Had a good meeting with many people about the new pulsar backend today...
NRAO 50th meeting took up almost all the week...
Need more time in the day...
MIT/LL 43m Project -- Glen
- Week of normal spacecraft tracking.
- MIT/LL wants to switch to higher frequency obs, but first wants to run tests of peaking on a spacecraft beacon.
- MIT/LL also is considering changing our trajectory interface to allow last minute/real-time coordinates from MIT/LL.
- The Purchase order changes to allow continuued operations is complete through 07 October.
- MIT/LL is working on funding through 2008.
- They are also reviewing possible operations at 12 GHz.
- We are preparing a document to (in)formally start Lunar neutrino collaborations between MIT/LL Glen Langston, Rich Bradley, Tim Hankins and Bob Mutel.
-- RichardPrestage - 21 Jun 2007
Revision r1.10 - 22 Jun 2007 - 13:47 GMT - RonMaddalena
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