GBT Operations & Commissioning Meeting 27 February 2004 AGENDA 1. Az Track and Telescope Status -- Bob 2. Observing News -- Ron 3. PTCS News -- Richard 4. Scheduling Status -- Carl 5. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines -- Roger 6. Spectrometer Status -- Karen 7. Software Status -- Nicole / Amy 8. Project Planning Status -- Richard for John 9. Any other Business PRELIMINARY REPORTS 1. Az Track and Telescope Status 2. Observing News Over the last week we had about 100 hrs of scheduled observing (~10 different projects) and 50 hrs of tests (PTCS, Q-band engineering and baseline tests, proposal checkouts). The percentage of test time this week was unusually high. About 7% of the scheduled test and observing time was lost. However, most of the serious problems this week occurred during the test time. From an observers perspective, it's very close to being the best week I've seen. The top sources of lost time were: 3 hrs to winds, 1.5 hrs to the 'death' of a Spectrometer sampler, 1 hr to iards problems, 1 and 2 hr, respectively, to the standard Spectral Processor and Spectrometer problems, and 1.5 hours to general software/hardware/human errors. Weather permitting, we hope to start general Q-band commissioning this weekend. -- RJM 3. PTCS News On Wednesday night/Thursday evening, we performed a series of out-of-focus (OOF) maps at Ku, Q and K-band. Unfortunately the Q-band data were lost due to a configuration error. Preliminary analysis of the Ku-band data, which had a deliberate bump introduced to help sort out sign conventions, etc, is extremely encouraging. Processing of the K-band data is underway; there may be some preliminary results in time for the meeting. More streamlined version of GFM, the new pointing and focus reduction software, and dynamic corrections for thermal effects have now been released for general use. I will give a demonstration in the auditorium to anyone interested after the meeting. -- RMP 4. Scheduling Status Last Week ========= Observations for proposals GBT01A-061, GBT02A-063, GBT02A-031, GBT03B-013, GG053 , GBT02A-025, GBT03A-015, GBT03B-015, GBT03A-016, GBT03A-006 Completed proposals GG053, GBT03A-006 Next Week ========= Observations scheduled for GBT02A-063 [P] PI Mark Claussen Water Maser Monitoring of Low and Intermediate Mass Young Stellar Objects GBT04A-045 PI Mallory Roberts Timing of Three Binary Pulsars Discovered in a Survey of Mid-Latitude EGRET Error Boxes GBT03C-031 PI Bryan Jacoby Timing the pulsars in M62, NGC 6544, and NGC 6624 and Search for Ultra-fast pulsars GBT03A-014 [B] PI Jay Lockman Halo HI Clouds: Distribution and Properties GBT02A-046 PI James Braatz Monitoring a Maser Disk in Mrk 1419 GBT03B-013 [B] PI Min Yun An Unbiased HI Survey of the Coma Cluster and Beyond GBT02A-025 [P] PI Mike Hollis A Search for the Next Interstellar Aldehyde Sugar: Glyceraldehyde GBT02C-002 [B] PI Christopher Carilli Redshifted HI 21cm Absorption towards Red Gravitational Lenses (J0134-0931, J1004+1229) GBT01A-058 [B] PI Frank Briggs High redshift Damped Lyman Alpha Systems against background Radio Galaxies February ======== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 399 [16] Maintenance ~ 77 Tests & Comm ~ 218 [8] Un-assigned ~ 3 March ===== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 474 [336] Maintenance ~ 2 [155] Tests & Comm ~ 264 [56] Un-assigned ~ 9 April ===== Scheduled hours [backup] Astronomy ~ 282 [8] Maintenance ~ [149] Tests & Comm ~ 117 [6] Un-assigned ~ 321 Proposal Checkouts ================== Awaiting checkout - 0 Active checkout - 31 On Hold - 7 Schedule - 42 Completed - 149 Current backlog [hours] = 2694 -- RCB 5. Frontends, IFs, and Spectral Baselines Baselines: The Q-band receiver continues to be the focus of baseline investigations. Data analysis and documentation of results from the past two weeks was done, and eight hours of testing on Thursday was used for further testing. Amoung other things, we measured the bandpass over the entire 40-52GHz range. That data has not yet been fully analyzed. In order to make further progress, we plan to implement one receiver channel in a test dewar and use it as a test bed. Ka-band and mmConverter: RF testing of the breadboarded mmConverter and fabrication of filters and amplifiers for this system continues. All 7-14GHz , two of the 13-20GHz, and one of the 19-26GHz preselection filters are completed. A prototype LO amplifier is being tested. Packaging layout is underway. Construction and testing of the prototype detector amplifier was pushed back to next week due to some work on accelerometers for PTCS. Feed window test fixtures are complete, window test sections are being fabricated. -- RDN 2/27/2004 6. Spectrometer Status *****Spectrometer Status***** As usual, we had a few DMA interrupt errors this week, but fewer than last week. No progress on finding a cause for these. Ford is pushing for the software group to do a few things on this problem. I'm not aware of all the details or whether any of it is getting done. We also had a problem with high speed sampler slot 1. The connector in the backplane is faulty and is burning two contacts on the samplers plugged into it. Replacing the connector is a major job, and risky. We have found a temporary work around, and it may turn into the permament solution. All spigot cards were tested in the system this week. After a few headaches, all reliably produced good data. One fly in the ointment was our inability to go back to previous revisions of spigot software because we did not understand Kaplan' s archiving system. We need to capture this working version of the software and put it into archives that we understand. *****Development Work***** Work on the LTA replacement continues. Progress is being made on timing simulations. Most of the design has been simulated and looks ok. The sequencer Xilinx design needs to be simulated a little more carefully. Some time was lost due to computer problems. A few hours were put into the cross-correlation test fixture. *****Plans for next week***** Additional work needs to be put into polishing the spigot card test procedure. Problems encountered this week getting the spigot to work in the system delayed this effort and really pointed out the importance of it. Archive the working spigot software. Continue work on LTA replacement and cross-correlation test fixture. -- Rich and Holly 7. Software Status Single Dish Development IPT #71 - Friday, February 27, 2004 Today ends week 2 of 6 in the new development cycle, C2 in 2004. The Plan of Record is available from the wiki at Software.PlanOfRecordC22004. In response to specific requests, there is a new config keyword "numbanks" to support the special spectrometer modes for low frequency work. Melinda has tested the slow samplers, and will test fast samplers next week before she and Frank patch this into the current version for immediate use. Also, the "iftarget" keyword will be included in this patch, which sets the analog power levels to a specified value. New functionality continues to be developed as part of the Observing API. This week, Mark and Amy completed coding of DecLatMap, Nod, OnOff, OnOffSameHA, Peak, PointMap, RALongMap, Slew, and Track. All of these procedures pass unit tests (109 tests), but have yet to be confirmed on the Antenna simulator. Extensive testing on the ported Converter Rack and GPIB server has continued this week using simulation modes of GPIB and MCB interfaces. Joe and Ray report that this is a significant step forward, because we now are much closer to having a 'simulated equipment room' for software debugging. Testing with real hardware is planned for today (Friday). In other news, Paul's test application for generating CLASS data is now producing CLASS binaries with simulated data. This is a major step forward as we aim to provide GBT data formatted for CLASS users. Operational support was minimal this week. Several code reviews took place, however, for the following software applications: Ka Band Receiver, Common MM Downconverter, SDFITS generator and Grail (M&C SOAP interface). Results are in the process of being posted to the Software wiki and can be obtained through PlanOfRecordC22004. -- NMR 8. Project Planning Status February 23, 2004 Planning Meeting Minutes Rm 137 10:00 A.M. [0] Observer comments & operator log items to discuss Action item review: partial bad device flagging We did not discuss this item. Will be added to next week's agenda. GBT Observing Summary: G. Langston Wendy Lane's High Redshift Galaxies Observing setup went very smoothly. Antenna emergency Stops caused 2.5 hours time lost. VLBI GG053 -- F. Ghigo Lost some time due to high winds, otherwise OK GBT Observing Summary: G. Langston 327 MHz image of the Coma Cluster on 2004 Feb 20 Observing setup went smoothly and all scans with Spectral Processor were executed without problem GBT Observing Checkout Tests: config_tool and Ku band Tests were successful with the help of Melinda Observer log entries: Software failures on Spectrometer, Spectral Processor, Prospero, and BCMP2, Wind stows, and a hardware failure on the servo system. ** Action Item: Nicole to check with Amy on renaming the Sun ** computer bcpm2 to something that is not the same as the ** hardware name. John to ask the helpdesk to rename it pending ** resolution of any software problems. [1] Resource calendar schedule conflicts and discussions Frank needs 4 hrs for config tool testing. [2] Observing Schedule discussions Action item review: Getting more backup scheduled F. Ghigo -- Test time F. Ghigo -- Calibration time request Items 1) and 2) were discussed together. Frank will be allocated time for his tests and the calibration time will be put on the calendar. Note that the LL observing is postponed indefinitely due to need for hardware changes in the front-end. ** Action items: 1) Ron will have a plan made up as to how this calibration time and associated data reduction will be accomplished, and will assess the impact on his commissioning and friend schedules. 2) Carl will finish his document on backup time and distribute it prior to next week's meeting. His initial feel is that we just don't have enough LF proposals to cover the backup time. [3] GBT development planning No discussions. [4] AOB Action item review: Spectrometer reanimation instruction update John related that Ops has a WIKI page for this, and it is being revised to contain the latest blessed instructions. Most of this is identical to that put out last April, with some clarifications and notes as to what steps are most applicaple to which problems. Nicole wants to discuss the new M&C security design. This will be distributed for review prior to the meeting. -- JMF 9. Any other Business