GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting 6 August 2004 AGENDA 1. Az track, antenna Report -- Bob 2. Observing News -- Ron 3. Scheduling Status -- Carl 4. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines -- Roger 5. Spectrometer Status -- Rich 6. Software Status -- Nicole 7. Project Planning Status -- John 8. Any other Business REPORTS 1. Az track, antenna Report Track: * Additional analyses are being contracted with SGH to resolve issues with the wear plates. * The 4340 trial plates should be ready for pickup the week of August 15. * Metallurgical analyses of the original wear plate material are in progress. Results should be ready around August 15. -- RAA 2. Observing News We had a rather uneventful week, even though we supported eight different proposals in fourteen observing session, plus PTCS and API tests. We had three maintenance days this week, one day less than we usually have had for the last two months. In all, we had 120 hours scheduled for observing and 10 hours for tests. Lost time was very low, with almost all of the problems coming from user instruments. The operators reported the following: Problems with user instrumentation: CGSR2 setup problems : 2 hrs LL Radar : 0.5 hrs Az/EL GO Tables : 1 hr Cabling/IF Manager : 0.5 hrs This is a lost time of just above 1% for NRAO-supported hardware and software. The operator's report are unclear as to the root cause of the Cabling/IF Manager problem. Next week support efforts shouldn't be too high -- in comparison to this week, we have about half the number of projects to support but about the same number of observing sessions, twice as much tests, and one more day of maintenance. X-band recomissioning will start the following week. The support scientist will be meeting next week to plan out the support schedule for the fall and to complete plans for the X-band commissioning. -- Ron 3. Scheduling Status Last Week ========= Observations for proposals GBT03B-042, GBT04A-003, GBT04B-003, GBT03C-001, GBT04B-036, GBT02A-069, GBT04A-017, GBT04B-007, GBT04B-018 Completed proposals GBT03B-042, GBT04B-007, GBT04B-018 Next Week ========= Observations scheduled for GBT04B-010 PI Bruce Campbell 70-cm Wavelength Bistatic Radar Observations of the Lunar Highlands GBT02A-021 PI Felix Lockman A Search for Recombination Lines from Diffuse Gas in the Galactic Center Region GBT04A-003 PI Steve Curran Highly Redshifted HI and OH Absorption in Red Quasars GBT04B-003 PI Alok Singhal The Connection between Galaxy Kinematics and HI Line Widths as Applied to the Distance Scale GBT03C-001 PI Anthea Coster Ionospheric Effects on Coherence Time Scales GBT04B-004 PI Cheng-Jiun Ma Search for HI gas in the Central Molecular-Gas-Rich Elliptical Galaxies of Rich Clusters GBT04B-038 PI Scott Ransom Observations of Ter5 GBT04A-017 PI Lucian Crosthwaite A Search For HI Tidal Interaction Debris in the Vicinity of NGC 5253 Scheduled hours [backup] ======================== Category/Month-> August September October November Astronomy ~ 384 335 [154] 150 0 Maintenance ~ 208 210 82 [068] 0 Test & Comm ~ 149 163 [055] 90 0 Un-assigned ~ 3 12 423 0 Proposal Checkouts ================== Awaiting checkout - 0 Active checkout - 5 On Hold - 5 Schedule - 52 Completed - 206 Current backlog [hours prior to 04B*] = 1438 Total time to discharge [hours] = 2230 * Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 04B -- RCB 4. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines Operational issues: No new operational issues this week. Baselines: We have breadboarded a simple temperature control circuit for the Optical Receiver 4-way splitter. This will go into one module next week for testing. Linearity: Steve has reworked three ODM modules, adjusting the microwave and detector circuits for linearity and zero offsets. A fourth is complete and will go into the system next week. A new PCB on alumina for IF amps has been sent to fabrication - due about September 13. Q-band: Work continues on the Q-band receiver. Gary has designed a simple filter circuit to try between the LO multiplier and the mixer, to see if this affects the output noise power ripple. Ka-band/mmConverter: New improved polarizers are installed. X-band: The X-band receiver goes well. Cold testing of the receiver is underway, and the mods to the M&C manager have been tested. Thermal cals are yet to be done. R. Norrod 8/5/2004 5. Spectrometer Status Spectrometer Report 29 July - 5 August 2004 *****Operations***** No significant problems this week. We will soon be installing a static mat and wrist strap behind the spigot2 computer. People installing data disks should use this static dissipation system. We hope this will increase the reliability of the disks. We have concluded that the calibration problems of a few weeks ago were caused by a flaky microprocessor. We have not had such a problem since the micro was replaced. This micro is now available as a free souvenir... *****Development***** LTA replacement: No news. Cross-Correlation Test Fixture: More progress on filter module. Trying to convince the printed circuit program to draw what I need. Spigot Timing: Progress on mode 25. After a few days of testing this mode we discovered why the amplitude of the lags seemed to have a high, low, high, low pattern. Per Ray's documentation, this mode needs two identical sets of scale and offset coefficients loaded into the coefficients memory. One set is used for the even time bins and one for the odd. David will modify his software and we'll re-test at the next opportunity. *****Plans***** - Continue LTA replacement and Cross-Correlation Text Fixture development. - Continue spigot mode testing. -- Rich 6. Software Status Single Dish Development IPT #92 - Friday, August 6, 2004 This is week 5 of 6 in the fifth development cycle (C5) in 2004. The Plan of Record is available from the wiki at Software.PlanOfRecordC52004. Integration tests for this cycle's releases begin on Sunday the 8th, continue mid-week in preparation for regression testing on the 15th. Installation of the new versions of M&Cv4.5 will be on the 19th, and GFM release will occur between the 15th and the 19th TBD. Much of this week's efforts have been focused on preparing for tests. Database schema upgrades were made on the 4th to enable the addition of the new pointing and focus model management approach during this release. X-band manager changes, increasing port capacities for various backends in the IF manager, archivist fixes, and a new error code in the active surface have been added to integration. Voltage supply and LO locking checks have also been put back into converter rack code and will be tested as part of this release (see ModificationRequest15C504 for details). Observing API tests continued, focused on preparing named observations, storing them to the observation management database, and executing them. The API now handles project metadata such as observer and project name. Details on the Observing API, including its usage, can be found on the wiki at Data.ObservingAPIBeta; details on the user interfaces being developed has been posted by Eric at Data.ObsPrepGUI. Contact Amy Shelton if you would like an overview of the documentation and the Observing API or have any questions. The new CCU/SCU flash disks are also now working but in order to deploy this, the CCU/SCU servo code must be ported. Operational Support: + None significant. -- NMR 7. Project Planning Status August 2, 2004 Planning Meeting Minutes Rm 137 10:45 A.M. [0] Observer comments & operator log items resulting in lost time: Observer's comments: Dennis Akos -- 4A46 Observations of GPS satellites For the most part, the observations were successful, although 2 hours of critical data that were coordinated with outside agencies were lost due to a regression in the antenna control system. N.B. This should be fixed now :( He was very happy with all the ancillary support here. Operator's log comments Significant failures the past 2 weeks stemmed from: Computing: Prospero failed -- Chris reports that there is a new file server (a Network Appliance packaged server) on the way that will alleviate this problem permanently. Software: Grail, Spectrometer Manager crashed, LO1 500 MHz lock false alarm, "stuck" filter switch, DCR faults, Antenna Manager trajectory failures, Converter rack message failure, turtle, config tool, PF Boom false error (hardware?) Nearly all of these are known repeat offenders. Many of the config tool failures were during testing of the config tool for new cases. The converter rack message failure has been fixed. A discussion was had during which the problem of some manager or other having a non-clear error state with no accompanying message was discussed. Ron reported that he was told the fix was to reboot the system. John commented that this is not, in general an acceptable fix. SDD to investigae further. Electronics: Spectrometer spigot microcontroller, Converter rack power supply failure, active surface power supply, Cable on Wind knocked off by spigot disk shuffling. It was mentioned that we need to clean up the equipment room. There are piles of boxes, tools, wiere, etc. from the major pulsar machine installations scattered about. An anti-static mat for doing spigot disk changes was procured and installed. Telescope/Servo: None! Other Problems from Observing Reports: [1] Resource calendar schedule conflicts and discussions No conflicts noted [2] Observing Schedule discussions Communicating schedule changes Carl will more widely publicise changes to the schedule so that all on site will be aware of them. This should solve this problem. A long discussion of receiver installation dates was held. The Ka Band receiver will be installed in order to start commissioning October 1st. The Q band receiver will be delayed, and will be installed November first, in order to allow Electronics to work on the baseline shapes. It was decided that a decision needed to be made on what receivers will be removed to make way for the Penn Array. The lucky winner was not S-band. We will endeavor to put the Penn Array in a 24" hole, and arrange things so that either the Ku, X, or C band receivers will be out. Carl's observing schedule will control which receiver is not on the telescope at any one time. All requests for telescope test and commissioning time for October through January need to be in by Friday, August 6th. [3] GBT development planning Next planning meeting next week Wednesday, August 11th. [4] AOB Software development priorities/approvals WBS/budgeting Q band schedule Ka band schedule There was not much time for this item. Most of the Q and Ka band discussion was taken care of under Item #2. John is writing a document that will be used to develop a Change Control Board for the telescope. This will ensure that changes to either hardware and software are not made without explicit discussion and approval of a multi-disciplinary team. -- JMF 8. Any other Business