GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting 16 May 2003 AGENDA 1. Az Track Status -- Bob A. 2. Spectrometer status -- Rich 3. Commissioning and Observing Checkout News -- Ron 4. Spectral Baseline, Front-end, and IF work -- Roger 5. Software status -- Melinda / Nicole 6. Data reduction report -- Joe McM (or proxy) 7. Project scheduling -- John 8. Observing schedule -- Carl 9. Any other business PRELIMINARY REPORTS 1. Az Track Status * Continental is on schedule to do the weld demonstration next week. Tooling is due in their shop Saturday.  They have done some small scale weld trials using the techniques that will be used and have sent us pictures of the welds.  They look good.  Dennis Egan and Bob Anderson will witness the trial next week in Savannah, GA. * We are assembling the equipment and tooling needed to do the attachment blocks and wear plate work.  * Gadsden Tool is on schedule to give us the new wear plates the week of May 27. * Work continues on the Phase 1 finite element analysis. -- RA 2. Spectrometer status Despite our best efforts, we have not been able to reproduce the problems experienced by O'Neil last week. The spectrometer has operated reliably this week. The cause of the phase jumps in the pulsar spigot data stream was found. It is caused by the re-alignment of the 1.3 msec heartbeat to the site 1 PPS at the beginnng of a scan. Ray has provided a firmware fix which will prevent data from being captured or sent to the spigot computer until after the synchronization is complete. This needs to be tested soon. Ray has confirmed that we have found a firmware error which could have led to bad voltage and temperature readings. These bad readings in turn can cause the spectrometer to shut down. A one-line code change is required to fix this. This needs to be tested soon. The design for the hardware reset is complete. A short design review was held Thursday, 5/15. It involves minor hardware and firmware changes. It will provide the ability for the M&C software to reset all microprocessors in the system with one command. Changes need to be implemented and tested. M&C software will require a minor change. Attempts to double the operating frequency of the system microprocessors continue. A 32 MHz oscillator was received this week and bench tested with a spare LTA board. Some things work and others don't. The investigation is continuing. The new compiler for the microprocessor firmware was received this week. It has problems with some instructions in our source code. We are working with technical support to resolve the problems. Plans for next week (comments appreciated): - test firmware upgrades. - continue working on 32 MHz upgrade to system microprocessors - attempt to resolve problems with new compiler -- Rich and Holly 3. Commissioning and Observing Checkout News o Frank, Toney, and Karen have been working on their configuration UI document which they are planning to distribute tomorrow, as planned. o After some support work from Jim Braatz, I'm now able to look at the holography data I took last week. Unfortunately, an oscillator in the holography system died today and the system will be down for a couple of weeks. Some of the commissioning time planned for holography will now go to proposal checkouts but some will become available to any other group that might need it. o Karen has only three more astronomically-interesting spectrometer modes to check out. She currently cannot process some of the existing data due to problems with Aips++ reading 4-bank data. o I worked with Riccardo Giovanelli and his students on a proposal checkout on Monday. The PI's probably will agree that all is ready for running their drift experiment during the planned telescope shutdown. Since the drift experiment need not have the same wind restrictions as for conventional observing, we've asked Bob and Tim to look into defining the appropriate wind restrictions. o We (i.e., mostly Frank) have spent time supporting about four projects. o The M&C system has had a few nights with rough problems. I don't know if the root cause of the problems is determined or whether the problems still plague the system. -- RJM 4. Spectral Baseline, Front-end, and IF work The S-band receiver was installed on the GBT on May 7. Engineering checkout on May 12 found an unstable channel which we believe was due to a bad heliax IF cable. The cable was replaced, and the test will be repeated on the 19th. We're also taking steps to improve the reliability of the heliax cables, which has been terrible. An e-mail discussion was held concerning the failed polarization transfer switch in the S-band receiver. The concensus was to NOT replace or repair the switch, because of the cost, until and unless scientific demand justifies the cost. Passive thermal stabilization of the Optical Receiver 4-way divider is being added to see how that affects the 60MHz ripple discussed last week. It has not been completed, so we have no new results to report. A written report was completed, giving details of the C-band baseline tests discussed last week. It is available at: http://www.gb.nrao.edu/gbt/baseline/subpages/reports/TBASERDN030505/report.pdf Sri finished an initial thermal gap design using the "photonic crystal" technique, and sent around the modeling results. These are being studied. -- RDN 5/15/03 5. M&C Software status Software Development Division #36 - Friday, May 16, 2003 We are ending week 3 of a 5-week development cycle, which will culminate with the release of M&C v.3.14 on 6/4/03. The plan of record which shows goals for M&C v3.14 is available at http://tryllium.gb.nrao.edu/images/POR_May03.pdf. Key tasks this month include finishing up software work on the spectrometer in response to the recent platform change, a batch of active surface items in support of PTCS, continued EMS development and analysis tasks including review of GBT configuration algorithms from a control systems perspective. 12 out of 15 MRs have been written and are approved, and 1 MR has been dropped due to costs outweighing benefits. Of the 12 approved MRs, 6 are still under development and 6 are ready for sponsor testing (this includes all EMS-related tasks which are actively being tested by Kim to support the first trilateration experiment using EMS). The remaining 2 MRs, involving antenna work in support of PTCS, are under review and development should begin by next week. Work on one MR, relating to improved sampler distribution for the spectrometer for engineering troubleshooting purposes, has been discontinued. It was identified that by performing the change, there would be wider reaching implications, to things like observers' glish scripts, GO and CLEO. The SDD determined that the costs of performing this change would greatly outweigh the benefits realized. This was discussed with Rich Lacasse, the sponsor, who is fine with the resolution since he has identified an alternative means to get some of the information this MR would have provided to him. The Linux Migration Project Charter has been completed but is still awaiting sponsor review, before it will be used to guide migration activities for the remainder of the year. A summary report to close the structural vibration monitoring knowledge transfer task was completed as expected. Response from the SDD regarding the GBT Configuration Memo was issued in its final form this week. FQL Tutorial will be held in the NCR on Wednesday, May 21st, from 3:30pm until 5pm. The first half hour will provide a quick-start overview, and the remaining hour will cover additional details and special topics for everyone who is interested in learning beyond the basics. -- NMR 6. Data reduction report 7. Project scheduling May 12th Planning Meeting Minutes (Draft) 0) Observer comments No new written comments. We discussed the Swift and Welch observations over the weekend. Notable comments: 1) They were mostly weathered out. 2) Spectrometer crashed a couple of times for a total of < 1 hr downtime. 3) Antenna control problems also contributed to downtime. 4) They expressed interest in exporting their data to IDL via some sort of SDFITS file. 5) They were happy with the 1 hour they got :) 1) This week's schedule Thursday's spectrometer test agenda will be determined after some testing by Clark. Ron and Frank exchanged some holography vs checkout time. 2) Next week's schedule Nothing notable. 3) June Observing Schedule discussions Schedule set based on 2 week shutdown for track welding. Track welding contractor is on schedule to make this date. 4) July Observing Schedule discussions Schedule filling except for the 2 weeks that are held in reserve. May have difficulty filling this at the last minute. 5) 6 month plan review Comments on the review last week John will write up the discussions for comment in the near future. Phil and Richard commented that good progress is being made on the 6 month plan. A more formal plan and assessment procedure is desired. Ron and Nicole commented that we should publicize our good progress so that our staff and interested outside parties will know where we are. 8) AOB Rich Lacasse provided some comments on the latest proposals. These will be forwarded to the gb project group for information. This spawned a discussion on some modifications that need to be made to the Proposal Submission Tool. This is on hold pending the E2E project rolling out a PST to replace the Gemini-based one we currently use, which we have lost the ability to use. We had some discussions of where we need to head in the data analysis arena. No conclusions were drawn. -- JF 8. Observing schedule Last week ========= Observing for: GBT03A-019, GBT02A-015, GBT02B-019, GBT03A-023, GBT03A-016, GBT02C-023, GBT01A-014 May === Remaining time: Astronomy ~ 180 hours Maintenance ~ 70 hours Tests & commissioning ~ 140 hours June ==== Shutdown ~ 227 hours Astronomy ~ 191 hours Maintenance ~ 189 hours Tests & commissioning ~ 113 hours July ==== Astronomy ~ 293 hours Maintenance ~ 218 hours Tests & commissioning ~ 234 hours August ====== Astronomy ~ 66 hours Maintenance ~ 192 hours Tests & commissioning ~ 98 hours Unassigned ~ 384 hours -- RCB 9. Any other business