GBT Operations and Commissioning Meeting 03 December 2004 AGENDA 1. Az track, Antenna Report -- Bob 2. Observing News -- Ron 3. Scheduling Status -- Carl 4. Microwave Electronics Status -- Roger 5. Digital Electronics Status -- Rich 6. Software Status -- Nicole 7. Project Planning Status -- John 8. Any other Business REPORTS 1. Az track, Antenna Report Az Track * A very busy week preparing for the Review Panel next week. * We had an early visit from the newest member of the panel, a metallurgist whose research interests are focused on basic metals. He was very interested, and most of the discussion revolved around the low material properties of the original wear plates, and how to improve properties over what we even are getting now. * SGH has completed runs on two models, and is processing the data now. GBT: * We inspected the turret drive belt this week and did not find any evidence of slippage. A rotation and lock at S-Band will be performed next week while someone watches inside the receiver room. * We inspected a leaking azimuth bearing seal, and installed some shim rings to add more compression to the seal. This greatly reduced the leakage. 140': * Work continues on cleaning the oil system. We have not received the oil as of Thursday evening. * We are looking at moving the antenna without the H316 as of this point. -- RAA 2. Observing News Observing News, November 19 to December 3, 2004 Since last November 19, we supported thirteen observing proposals, in twenty four observing sessions (shortest session 1 hour; longest 24 hours). We had 293 hours of Astronomy (including 48 hours of VLBI). PF1 Receiver Checkout took 1 hours and PTCS ran for 19 hours. We had four maintenance days, all 9.5 hours or less. We were shutdown for Thanksgiving for 37 hours. Most observing setup seems to have gone smoothly. Most setups took less than 1 hour. Toney provided improved GO tables that aid high frequency observers switching between pointing and spectral line observing. Generally the front-end, IF, backend hardware have been functioning well. There has also been improved software reliability. The only new challenge was with Antenna Trajectory errors during certain types of long continuum mapping observations. The effect was repeatable during a test observing session. Now it is being studied using the antenna simulator. GL 3. Scheduling Status Last 2 Weeks ============= Observations for proposals GBT04C-051, GBT02C-050, GBT04C-052, GBT04C-032, BK114 , GBT04C-056, GBT03A-015, GBT04C-036, BG150 , GBT04A-018, GBT04B-029, GBT04C-018, BB190 , GBT01A-029 Completed proposals GBT04C-051, GBT02C-050, GBT04C-052, GBT04C-032, GBT03A-015, BG150, BB190 Next Week ========= Observations scheduled for GBT04C-021 [P] PI Yang Wang Large-scale structures, fragmentation and cluster formation in OMC-2 and OMC-3 GBT04C-056 [P] PI Paul Demorest Precision Timing of Binary and Millisecond Pulsars GBT04C-057 [B] PI Patrick Cameron Search for radio pulsations from a new X-ray pulsar in CTB 1 GBT04C-025 [B] PI Maura McLaughlin Investigating a New Class of Transient Radio Sources GBT04B-026 [B] PI Michael Kramer Timing the First Double Pulsar System GBT04C-036 [B] PI Rajagopalan Ramachandran Searching for young pulsars in the Cygnus Super Bubble region GBT02C-025 [P] PI Thomas Greve CO(1-0) in the 'big five' high-z sources GBT04B-029 [B] PI Ingrid Stairs Timing New Binary and Millisecond Pulsars from the Parkes Multibeam Survey GBT04C-008 [B] PI Yurii Pidopryhora Mapping the Galactic Halo HI: Evidence of Outflow from the Galactic Plane? GBT01A-029 PI Steve Eales A First Investigation of the Origin of Galaxies with the GBT Scheduled hours [backup] ======================== Category/Month-> December January February March Astronomy ~ 435 [194] 433 [303] 0 0 Maintenance ~ 36 [051] 0 [136] 0 0 Test & Comm ~ 193 [042] 253 [058] 0 0 Shutdown ~ 36 0 0 0 Un-assigned ~ 44 58 0 0 Proposal Checkouts ================== Awaiting checkout - 0 Active checkout - 9 On Hold - 5 Schedule - 52 Completed - 248 Current backlog [hours prior to 04C*] = 962 Total time to discharge [hours] = 2021 * Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 04C -- RCB 4. Microwave Electronics Status Operational issues: It has been very quite, with no significant problems. Penn Array: RFI testing of the electronics crate went OK. The box is being cleaned up in the shop, and will ship soon to U. Penn. 3mm Rx: A detailed schedule has been developed (updated). Current work focuses on definition of the monitor and control definitions so that design of the cardcage can be completed - this will allow construction of a differencing assembly to be tested warm. Other work is underway on certain waveguide components and test fixtures: WR-12 vacuum windows, square waveguide loads, etc. The quartz feedhorn vacuum windows were originally planned to be fabricated at the CDL; this will now be done at GB. Q-band: One of the mixers we suspect is the source of gain drop-outs has been sent back to the manufacturer for inspection. IF System: The ODM now in IF channel 5 is outfitted with two of Steve's in-house MMIC amplifiers, and is in service. R. Norrod 12/02/2004 5. Digital Electronics Status Spectrometer Report 19 November - 2 December 2004 *****Operations, Problem summary***** Nov. 20: Fluctuation power levels on spigot observation?? Nov. 29: Rail of spikes in both frequency and lag space. We checked this the following day and it was gone. This is the symptom given by the old paddle board problem (every 16th lag is wrong resulting 100 MHz rails). Since it is intermittent we will have to be called in when it^Òs acting up to fix it. *****Development***** *LTA replacement: LTA design is ready to send out for making PCB. I have been working on LTA firmware since last week. *Cross-Correlation Test Fixture: The printed circuit board for the cross-correlation and output module was sent out for fabrication. All parts required for assembling the card are on hand. The drawing for the case is in drafting. Tests were run on the first filter module. After fixing a minor design problem and tweaking, module performance was adequate for the intended purpose. Micro-strip Bandpass filter center frequencies came out about 1.25% low, presumably because of board properties. The documentation has been updated to reflect the design changes. *Spigot: New firmware that correctly supports all documented modes has been installed and tested. Tests to characterize the correlator input level versus the zero lag offset were conducted and documented. This will help spigot observers know when to re-balance. *****Plans***** Continue LTA replacement and Cross-Correlation Text Fixture development. -- Rich and Holly 6. Software Status Single Dish Development IPT #107 - Friday, December 3, 2004 Today ends week 2 in C8, the last development cycle of 2004. The new Plan of Record is available from the wiki at Software.PlanOfRecordC82004, and focuses primarily on maintenance activities and other items which require less scientific support. As decided at the end of 2003, these types of tasks were selected to ensure greater productivity during the holiday season. The MR for prime focus balancing which was recently approved was coded and tested this week. When released, this functionality will be available in both the config tool and turtle. IDL work continues at a strong pace, as modules are institutionalized from contributions from external sources. Significant work has also gone into writing up data reduction recipes in IDL, and these are being correlated with the Observing.StandardObservingModes and data reduction cases that have been compiled in previous development cycles, forming a complete picture. Jim and Ron should be meeting next week to step through some of the recipes, thus starting early beta testing. GFM MRs have also been approved, and efforts this week have focused on two new additions: making the focus fitting work better even when there is not a lot of baseline on either side of the Gaussian, and improving options for handing dual-feed data (in particular, adding an option to process data using the 2nd feed as the reference for the 1st feed even in the absence of beamswitching). In support of PTCS and upcoming Penn Array testing needs, analysis work has started on an unconstrained track scan type (the equivalent of __Track in GO) which will be available in turtle. Substantial progress has been made on resolving cascading errors between grail, antenna characterization, and dynamic corrections. In particular, a problem was discovered with RPC++ where one method would fail to return values if its loads were high. This problem, in the process of being resolved, could be one of the contributors to general M&C instabilities in the past. Porting the software on gbtaio1 was started this cycle, and the IF Rack is now more than halfway complete. Because of a greater amount of work required to solve the cascading errors problems, if any task this cycle is to slip, it will be the porting of the PF receivers, Motor Rack, and PF Support Rack. Operational support since 11/19 has included: * Paul answered some questions about gbt2class pertaining to velocity scales and possibly incorrect offset units * Joe supported tests to recreate antenna trajectory stop and start problems on 11/30 * However, no patches have been made to the M&C system since the last status report on 11/19 --NMR 7. Project Planning Status November 29, 2004 Planning Meeting Minutes Rm 137 10:45 A.M. [0] Observer comments & operator log items resulting in lost time: Observer's comments received from: None. Operator's log comments Significant failures the past week stemmed from: Computing: None Software: Grail, GFM, Antenna Characterizations The Grail report was due to a problem with the antenna coordinator. This has cropped up before, and SDD are looking into it. The GFM reports were due to the data being bad, and not due to any fault in the system. The Antenna Characterizations problems are due to dependencies on the order that things are restarted, which is being addressed in Cycle 8. Electronics: None Telescope/Servo: Wind Other: Human error (~1 hr) Other Problems from Observing Reports: [1] Resource calendar schedule conflicts and discussions None We decided to set aside the first maintenance day to allow attempts to reproduce problems with a mapping project last week. The first maintenance day will thus end at about 11:00 A.M. [2] Observing Schedule discussions Backup time is available throughout December in the late-night hours from midnight to 7:00 A.M. [3] GBT development planning Meeting on Wednesday to discuss long-range plans with project managers Division Heads will meet with David Hubbard Tuesday afternoon from 1:30 to 3:00 to discuss the NRAO Project Management Office initiatives. [4] AOB Decisions will need to be made this week on the Q,Ka, and Penn Array receivers. The Change Control Committee minutes and charter are posted on the wiki, and should be publicized. -- JMF 8. Any other Business