Notes from Commissioning Meeting
16 August 2002


1.  Action items

Richard has placed all the commissioning action items on a web page at

http://www.gb.nrao.edu/gbt/gbtstatus

We will be keeping track of action items closely and we should all work
very diligently to discharge them.


2.  Program checkouts

Program 2B-6:  Ron will not have time to work on this before his trip, but
will pick it up upon return.

Program 2A-18:  Frank has scheduled commissioning time in the coming week
to work on this.

Program 2A-11:  Still on Dana's list.

Of the original 11 proposals selected at the start of this summer,

	2 are completed
	3 are scheduled
	1 in progress (first of two sessions completed)
	2 pending baseline improvements
	3 on the action list above.

It was decided that the web pages mentioned above will be kept on the
Intranet URL listed above, but will not be linked from the web page.
Everyone on the commissioning team should bookmark this page.

Ron, Richard, and Carl have been working hard to produce the next list of
proposals to check out, and expect to have this list out early next week.

Richard noted that David Kaplan would be here from 16-25 September to work
on the spigot card.  The time available to him will be negotiated.


3.  Software Status

Richard gave the software group update for Nicole.  Good news on the LO1
frequency switched phasing problem:  Joe B. and Amy have made changes that
greatly reduce the rate of occurrence of this problem.  There is still
some more work left to completely eliminate it, but progress seems very
good.  The changes will go into the next release of M&C (v3.6).

The Software Group status report was handed out.

The Spectral Processor cables mentioned at past meetings are still
switched.  Mark and Bob will agree what needs to be done to the FITS files
and Filler to deal with the change, which will go in the September release
of M&C.

It was noted that the Active Surface micro is presently dead; Amy has
scheduled time to work on this next week.


4.  Spectrometer status

Rich has been away all week, so there is no news to report.  Phil
mentioned that we will probably want to get started on cross correlation
modes soon to address some observing proposals in the queue.


5.  Baselines

Roger is proposing to take the K-band receiver to the Equipment Room, hook
it up to the backends, and test it there before re-installing it on the
telescope.  There was a discussion about whether the LO1 manager could be
installed to run on a single board computer in the lab.  It may be useful
to have a permanent test setup in the Equipment Room for receivers, but
Roger suggested that we see how useful it was in this instance before
setting anything up.

Roger reported on the L-band baseline tests done earlier this week.  There
is a suspicion that there is a source of broadband noise bouncing around
the optics and getting in the feed.  To see if this arose from any devices
on the telescope, devices were turned off one by one, but no improvement
was found.

The C-band receiver has been reinstalled on the telescope and appears to
be improved.


6.  AIPS++ news

Joe M. noted that glish cannot cope with the hyphens in the GBT project
codes (they are interpreted as minus sign operators).  It may be necessary
to convert these to underscores, but Joe stated that he would look into
options before requesting this.

Carl has worked out a naming convention for data files.  This will be
described in a separate memo.

Joe asked that the new release of M&C be tested against the new AIPS++
Stable.

The AIPS++ team have identified several priorities for the next
development cycle.  These include multi-IF, polarization modes,
multi-bank, and dual-beam switching.  Based on the proposals in the queue,
Richard will give feedback to Joe on the ordering of these priorities next
week.


There were no new actions added to the list at this meeting.

						PRJ  // 16 August 2002