GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting 14 November 2003 AGENDA 1. Az Track and Telescope Status -- Bob 2. Observing News -- Ron 3. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines -- Roger 4. Spectrometer Status -- Rich 5. Software Status -- Nicole 6. Scheduling Status -- Carl 7. Project Planning Status -- John 8. Any other Business PRELIMINARY REPORTS 1. Az Track and Telescope Status Az Track: * SG&H is still working on FEA model. Run times of models are about 1 hour per inch, ane the length is about 18", which needs to be longer to evaluate joint behaviour. Egan, Anderson, and Symmes planning trip to SG&H next week to see results if available, if not, a conference call is planned. * Mounting holes for reflectors being drilled this week in preparation for tests next week. * Awaiting quotations on newer wear plate materials from Gadsden Tool. Should have sometime next week to evaluate. Structural Inspection/repairs * Could not be completed this week due to weather. * M&M and Peter Keating evaluating results of strain gauge tests. Should have a report next week. -- RAA 2. Observing News Over the last week, the telescope has been used for various tests more than is typical. We've essentially supported just a few observing projects and a couple of proposal checkouts. The lost time due to the recent winds is about all there is to report. The operators, for example, logged only two incidents when an observer lost time. Most of the reported failures happened when they would be expected -- when people were explicitly testing software. We can expect this lull to be short lived since we anticipate testing Ku- and Q-band, and a return to K-band, over the next few weeks. -- RJM 3. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines Q-band: Problems which we believe were causing amplifier failures were identified and are being corrected. Assuming no further surprises, installation will be on November 19. We will have two working beams at that time. Ku-band: The receiver is ready to install (installation scheduled for Nov 13 was prevented by high winds). We measure noise temperature at the feed apertures under 15K over most of the receiver band with the new Cryo3 amplifiers. Field mods to the synthesizers used as the system LO2 were completed this week; all eight are now in service. We have requested PF1 removal for one week for cryo maintenance. This system has required five refrigerator replacements over the last two years, a higher rate than we like. While the receiver is off, the antenna PF1 helium lines will be cold-trapped to make sure contaminents are removed. Removal is tenatively scheduled for December 4-11. We have also requested scheduling of Rcvr8_10 removal after the first of the year, for maintenance and thermal calibrations. -- RDN 11/13/2003 4. Spectrometer Status The spectrometer has been operating reliably this week. Most of the credit for the recent robust performance of the spectrometer is due to software enhancements (SDD and Ford) and firmware enhancements (Chen). The last recorded hardware failure was back in August when a capacitor failed! Work continues on the LTA redesign, and, in particular, on the FPGAs. Some time has been expended learning Microwave Office in anticipation of designing a cross-correlation test fixture. Work continues on High Speed Sampler modification. All the ones in the rack (8) have now been modified. Two spares are in process of being modified. One of the two spares will be outfitted with new delay cables to see if this will improve the baseline problem caused by the samplers. Due to the lack of software support for pulsar-mode development, there has been a change in plans for Rich's time. He will concentrate on developing a cross-correlation test fixture and test cross-correlation modes. The software for these is already developed (but certainly not debugged). Plans for next week - Continue (finish?) modifications to High Speed Samplers - Meet to discuss plans for the spigot system. - Continue FPGA design - Continue cross-correlation test fixture design -- Rich and Holly 5. Software Status Single Dish Development IPT #59 - Friday, November 14, 2003 Today ends week 6 of 6 in the current development cycle, which is the 8th cycle in 2003. The Plan of Record for the current development cycle is available from the wiki at Software.PlanOfRecordC82003 along with the most up-to-date status information. The next and last cycle of 2003 begins on Monday. The following will be released within the upcoming week: * M&Cv3.18 on Tue 11/18 * Configuration API v1.0beta on Tue 11/18 * SDFITS API v1.0beta on Mon 11/23 API = Application Programming Interface (command line/script access to functionality) A beta version indicates that at least one or two additional cycles will be required for astronomers internal to NRAO to evaluate and use the utilities before they are "officially" launched as a production capability. Highlights of M&Cv3.18 are the addition of the Air Temperature Sensor Monitoring Manager, and the completion of a SOAP interface which allows controlled accessibility to the M&C system from any programming language that understands SOAP. No new features will be added to the Configuration API or the SDFITS beta API during the next cycle, however, PLEASE continue to send all feedback on configuration to Melinda Mello, and all feedback on SDFITS to David Fleming as additional changes and enhancements will surely be required. Users are encouraged to visit the wiki and look under Knowledge.HowToConfigureTheGbt to find up-to-date information on how to configure an observation, and Data.UnifiedFITSUsage, Data.SdfitsBetaStatus and Data.UnifiedFITS for information on SDFITS. There was no significant operational support this week. -- NMR 6. Scheduling Status Last Week ======== Observations for: GBT02C-045, GBT02A-063, GD017, GBT02A-007 Completed: GBT02C-045 November ======== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 282 [124] Maintenance ~ 108 Tests & comm ~ 295 [47] Shutdown ~ 36 December ======== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 270 [69] Maintenance ~ 111 Tests & comm ~ 328 [40] Shutdown ~ 36 Januray ====== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 220 Maintenance ~ [140] Tests & comm ~ 98 Un assigned ~ 405 Proposal Checkout Queues ==================== Awaiting checkout - 9 Active checkout - 26 Schedule - 43 On Hold - 5 Completed - 78 -- RCB 7. Project Planning Status November 10th Planning Meeting Minutes Rm 241 10:00 A.M. [0] Observer comments Projects: 2C45 Observer: Kondratko Date: 4:30 pm 2 Nov - 7:30 pm 3 Nov Summary: The observer was very happy with the way the observations went. Problem Summary: 1) Spectrometer hung in Activating. 2) Converter Rack hung in Activating. 3) New configuration tool can't handle devices being rebooted. 4) HVAC in receiver room. 5) AZ brake fault. Project Checkouts: Frank Ghigo: Project 3C_002 may be the first project to do continuum observing with multiple frequencies and wide bandwidths using the DCR. Initial checks in the 5 GHz band were done under overcast weather conditions and were not very encouraging because there is no way to rapidly switch between a source and the background. The K-band part of the project may be more sucessful due to the dual beam system. More tests are planned to be done in clear weather. Ron M.: On Saturday, I had a very productive time checking out proposal 2B5 at X- and L-band. The X-band part of the project can be done. The observing mode described in the proposal for the L-band part of the project won't work -- the Spectrometer doesn't have the necessary dynamic range for an OffOn experiment on the Galactic Center. I will need another ~6 hours of test time to explore other observing modes like frequency switching and using the Spectral Processor. Glen L.: VLBI run went very smoothly. PTCS: Had a problem with a pointing scan failure. It was determined later that the telescope was probably out of focus, which is why no source was detected. Galaxy Program: Operations sent out a lengthy report about difficulties with the system overnight. The system fixed itself after 3 or 4 hours, and observing continued. John implored them to call people in when things go wrong so that time will not be wasted, and so that the responsible parties can see the faults and possibly fix them. [1] Resource calendar schedule conflicts and discussion No conflicts Q band is not ready for this week. 2 more weeks The problem with the diode protection networks has been found, and corrections are underway. Ku band *may * be ready Thursday, but we should plan for next week. After further discussion, we scheduled Ku installation for Thursday, with a backup day of Friday. Observing will be re-arranged on Friday if necessary. Next week most of the maintenance time will be eaten up with track measurements. [2] Observing Schedule discussions Backup time is available for November and December. January scheduling is starting. [3] GBT development planning Staffing Spreadsheet discussion and conclusions The nearly complete spreadsheets were discussed. After levelling out the software division effort, it became apparent that we lack scientific services effort. Ron, Nicole, Richard, and John will meet and try to sort this out. Caltech backend discussions The caltech backend is in a bit of a schedule crunch, with the end of the contract looming, and the design still unfinished. We are putting together a plan to help caltech complete the project. [4] AOB None. -- JF 8. Any other Business