GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting 11 June 2004 AGENDA 1. Az Track and Telescope Status -- 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 PRELIMINARY REPORTS 1. Az Track and Telescope Status Track: * Art Symmes has been analyzing the stresses in the wear plate with a gap between the wear plate and baseplate, and has developed some pretty credible results. This is a static model, with a fine mesh. The results are higher than those predicted by SGH with a coarse model. He continues to work on this task. * Dennis and I went through every known box of GBT records, and found one file with one copy of material information on the wear plates. I contacted the plate supplier; their office closed June 1, and the existence and/or location of records is known. I then contacted the heat treater, and they were bought out in 1996. Records prior to 1994 were disposed of last month. I then contacted the fabricator, and they still had the cut-offs from the plates. We are in the process of having some of them prepared and shipped to the lab for testing. If they really are from the plates, cut just prior to machining, we can gain much information about the original condition of the material and how it deteriorates. This may be a significant finding. Other: Modjeski and Masters is on site, and the structural inspection has started. -- RAA 2. Observing News We supported ten different proposals (two of which were VLBI runs) in eleven observing sessions. 42 hours went to tests, most of which was a PTCS run, and 82 hours to observing. This week the major sources of lost observing or test time were: Spigot software/hardware : 2 hrs Human error (Bad observing file) : 1.5 hrs IF Rack hardware : 0.7 hrs Spectral Processor software/hardware : 0.5 hrs Other software/hardware : 0.7 hrs About 4% of the observing and test time was lost. There were an unusual number of 5MHz/1PPS errors that probably did not affect the observations. The operators reported a number of Active Surface and a few Servo errors that also had no affect on observing. Carl and the support scientist met to determine the support schedules for both July and August. You can find the schedules on the web. Note that we'll be supporting only a few projects over the next few weeks, a welcome relief form the hectic winter observing schedule. -- RJM 3. Scheduling Status Last Week ========= Observations for proposals GV017 , GB049 , GBT04A-045, GBT03B-013, GBT02A-069, GBT03B-015, GBT04B-017, GBT02A-017, GBT04B-029, GBT04B-019 Completed proposals GV017, GBT04B-019 Next Week ========= Observations scheduled for BB187 PI Gregory Black Interferometric Radar Observations of Asteroid (25143) Itokawa GBT02A-046 PI James Braatz Monitoring a Maser Disk in Mrk 1419 GBT04B-015 PI Donald Campbell Mapping the Topography of Maxwell Montes on Venus GBT04B-017 PI Amy Lovell OH Observations of Long-Period Comets GBT04B-007 PI Casey Law A Study of the Galactic Center Lobe GBT02B-005 [P] PI Farhad Yusef-Zadeh Search for Positronium Recombination Maser Line Emission Toward the Galactic center GBT02A-017 PI Dana Balser The Galactic Evolution of 4He: The dy/dz Relation June ==== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 333 Maintenance ~ 220 Tests & Comm ~ 162 [20] Un-assigned ~ 5 July ==== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 311 [26] Maintenance ~ 208 Tests & Comm ~ 169 [15] Un-assigned ~ 56 August ====== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 292 [14] Maintenance ~ 214 Tests & Comm ~ 129 [23] Un-assigned ~ 109 Proposal Checkouts ================== Awaiting checkout - 0 Active checkout - 5 On Hold - 6 Schedule - 67 Completed - 185 Current backlog [hours prior to 04B*] = 1736 Total time to discharge [hours] = 2769 * Includes projects that are on hold for trimester 04B -- RCB 4. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines 5. Spectrometer Status Spectrometer Report 3 Jun - 10 Jun 2004 *****Operations***** Only one significant problem was reported this week. Scott Ransom had problems running the spigot software. It turns out that it was re-installed with the incorrect permissions. Ford and Brandt have modified a script that will keep this from happening again. *****Development***** Astronomical tests of spigot mode 25 were conducted. There was a problem with loading calibration values: the spigot card simply seemed to be ignoring the command to load the values! We concluded that some form of acknowledgement should be added to the protocol ASAP. There may be spigot software problems as well given the output seen by Kaplan. Preparations for the LTA design review on Monday continued. Trim capacitors for the filter module of the Cross-Correlation Test Fixture were ordered. All parts for this module are now on order. A detailed printed circuit layout was begun. Further progress on the board awaits the arrival of the trim caps. A second round of simulations will be performed to reflect the tentative board layout. *****Plans***** Cross-Correlation Test Fixture: - continue work on the filter module Spigot: - Spigot card firmware will be modified. The software will make it possible to know that calibration constants have been successfully loaded. LTA replacement: - Design review Monday. Followup work the rest of the week. -- Rich 6. Software Status Single Dish Development IPT #84 - Friday, June 11, 2004 Today ends Week 4 of 6 in the fourth development cycle (C4) in 2004. The Plan of Record which shows what you can expect in these releases is available from the wiki at Software.PlanOfRecordC42004. Documentation showing results from our integration and regression testing, and other previous cycles release information, can be found at Software.SoftwareReportCentral on the wiki. Work continues on regular deliverables for the current development cycle. Development for the Common MM Converter has been completed and the code must now undergo sponsor testing. This may wait until the equipment is available depending upon the needs of Electronics. The accelerometer and inclinometer managers have successfully passed initial tests, and although additional data analysis is necessary, this first accomplishment is noteworthy. Health checks for the temperature sensors are now being done daily, and the tests are being iterated on based on early results. Focus fitting improvements have been added to gfm-test and are being tested. Mark, Amy and Eric continue to do tests on the Observing API using a prototype Scheduling Block Executor (which will be adapted based on comments we receive throughout the summer) as a means to get the Observing API beta on the air. Melinda has been investigating issues related to spectral processor balancing (as per PO#869) as well. In other news: Joe Brandt participated in wideband spectrometer discussions this week. Also, although it has been on our Plan of Record for two cycles, we will not be able to initiate or complete the new calibration code (or make it available for dish, IDL, GFM) until the revised specs are available. Operational support over the past week has included: + Amy spent a few hours investigating the self test for the Spectral Processor, which is faulty. Comparison files are produced but are of zero length. Hardware seems to be operating properly. Additional work will be done to identify the problem and fix. --NMR 7. Project Planning Status June 7, 2004 Planning Meeting Minutes Rm 137 10:45 A.M. [0] Observer comments & operator log items resulting in lost time: Operator's log comments Significant failures this week stemmed from: Computing: None Software: Spigot data collection program reinstalled without setuid bits set, SP hung in stopping Electronics: 1 PPS/ 5 MHz sync error, RF switch to C band receiver YR channel, K band receiver M&C Telescope/Servo: Weather, wire on S/R Z actuator, active surface IIOP 1, Other Problems from Observing Reports: T. Minter: No real-time display of polarization data K. O'neil: Wierd spectrometer behavior [1] Resource calendar schedule conflicts and discussions" Day #1 - 3 OK. No Maintenance Thursday or Friday There will be 5 days of maintenance next week. [2] Observing Schedule discussions Backup time for the weekend and Tuesday night is available for tests, etc. Carl will try to schedule it. [3] GBT development planning Meetings Schedule Project presentation meeting June 15th, 10-12 Cycle 5 planning meeting, June 22nd, 10-12 Meetings this week to gather requirements for the new Proposal Tool, and meetings on data analysis and ease of use. Nicole and Carl to work out the details. Andy Harris will be here to talk about the Wideband Spectrometer project. [4] AOB None. -- JMF 8. Any other Business