From lserna at aoc.nrao.edu Mon Oct 4 13:53:46 2004 From: lserna at aoc.nrao.edu (Lew Serna) Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 11:53:46 -0600 Subject: [Escoordminutes] ES Div. Coordination Mtg. for September Message-ID: <41618E2A.3010403@aoc.nrao.edu> Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, September 28, 2004, at 10 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending were Bob Broilo, Lew Serna, Pat Lewis, Guy Stanzione, Brent Avery, Patty Lindsey, Mark McKinnon, Jim Ruff, James Sullivan, Tom Frost and Jon Thunborg. BUDGET Serna. September 28 is last day for requisitions charged to FY 2004. Projections show that ES Division has spent down their budget with a carry over for rail equipment ordered in FY 2004. WBS? were received from engineering and site & wye groups, still need WBS? from Antenna Mechanic and Electrical groups. Plan on same operating budget as you had beginning last fiscal year until budget numbers are available. Bearing refurbishment is on hold until more information about next years budget is available. AZ Bearings. Antenna #16 bearing replacement scheduled for Monday, October 18 will be delayed 1 week to October 25. Critical personnel may require a schedule shift change if they work on Fridays. Parts from the bearings removed from antennas should be stored until they are scheduled to be shipped to Rotek for repair. These parts are needed for measuring and fitting of new parts. Antenna #14?s bearing will be shipped to Rotek for possible refurbishment sometime in FY 2005. Bearings will be refurbished as they are removed from the Antennas (approximately 1 per year). Antennas 18, 20 and 26 have bad bearings that will eventually need to be replaced. A spare bearing should be maintained at all times. An estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change can occur. Antenna #16 should enter the AAB around October 6. Try to prepare as far in advance as possible. Guy Stanzione will be the next Bearing Change Supervisor. It is possible that visitors from Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK will witness the separation. NEW PROJECTS: AZ bearing pocket mill- the AZ Bearing Pocket Mill is used to machine the antenna azimuth bearing pocket. At best the mill will currently achieve an accuracy of around .008 inches or .009 inches of tolerance. The spec calls for less than a .012 inch tolerance. The use of a different bearing on the mill would achieve a higher degree of accuracy for milling the pocket. The bearing has been ordered and has a 6 week delivery leadtime. Drawings for the modification are being drawn up. The modification will not be available for the bearing change in October but should be ready for the following bearing change. AUTO shop concrete slab-- The badly deteriorated slab in front of the Auto Shop needs to be replaced. Approximate cost is around $4K for 37 yards of concrete and other materials. This project should be complete by next week. VLA tachs? it is desirable to replace the analog tachs with digital brushless tachs on the VLA antennas as is being done on the VLBA antennas. Bob believes this can be done with normal operations funding with a plan to replace tachs as they fail. Tachs would have to be replaced at a minimum rate of 2 per failure or one axis (AZ or EL) at a time. Replacement of these tachs should improve reliability of the servo system. ANTENNA doors? many antenna vertex room and pedestal room doors are in bad shape and need replacement. Ramon will investigate the problem and decide if these doors should be replaced as part of the overhaul. Otherwise they will be replaced as needed. Insulated steel doors cost around $400 each. VLBA painting ? A program to visit each VLBA site for painting is being considered. The VLBA SC site antenna is in dire need of a paint job and will be first priority. Other sites will be investigated to establish a priority. It would be highly desirable to have a three week period in order to achieve adequate preparation prior to painting at VLBASC. The first visit would entail painting areas of the antenna from the elevation axis down. Also some repairs to stairways, platforms and other structural components would have to be made prior to painting. Shipment of equipment, manlift rental, paint material, fresh water purchases, and travel cost estimates are roughly around $60K. A true cost analysis is being made by J. Thunborg. VLBA antenna panel adjustments? a program to set VLBA antenna panels at a rate of 3 antennas per year is also being considered. Holography measurements for Pie Town panels are available. Because of the backup structure design, the panel adjustments can be made without a manlift. PT panels were marked and adjusted in a period of around 3 days. The basic plan is 4 men for 3 days on site. ACU Modification. A new ACU replaces the ACU in its entirety is desirable. The new ACU would hopefully improve the position loop response, improve reliability and replace the obsolete components. A PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) based upgrade would cost around $3K per antenna. EVLA STATUS Cold Storage (Shop Space) ? The EVLA Cold Storage Building is complete with the exception of sprinkler and electrical work. Storage can begin in the north end while sprinkler work proceeds on the south end. After the south end is complete material may have to be moved to the completed area in order to complete the north end. Minor electrical work is currently being done to provide exterior lighting. Sprinkler work may require help from the carpentry group. Transporter Generators- Two John Deere 70 KW generators are ordered to replace the existing 40 and 31 KW Detroit generators on the transporters. There is an 8 week delivery. The new generators should be able to carry both the transporter and antenna loads and are much quieter than the old Detroit generators. Some modification to the transporter will be required to fit the new generators since they do not have the same footprint as the old generators. Acceptance Tests? After Antenna 16 is outfitted it will undergo numerous required acceptance tests prior to being turned over to Operations. Leadmen and supervisors are asked to compile a checklist for their area of responsibility that will ensure that the EVLA antennas will be completely operational prior to entering the array for operations. A decision has been made to convert all antennas to EVLA during overhauls from antenna 16 forward. ModComp relocation will begin soon and will require manpower from Electrical, HVAC and Carpentry shops. QUARTERLY REPORT UPDATE P. Lindsey Quarterly Report Due. Please update & return to Patty by Thursday. SAFETY REPORT... Accident/Incidents Report: Three (3) new accidents to report this month. There have been a total of sixteen (16) Accident/Incidents reported this year. Twelve 12 accident/incident attributed to the ES Division. Monthly All Hands Safety Meeting: Last meeting was held on August 26, 2004. There were a total of 39 employees in attendance. Near misses was the topic. Next Monthly All Hands Safety Meeting: The next all hands safety meeting will be held on September 30, 2004 @ 3:00pm in the VLA Cafe. OFCS (Optical Fiber Communication System) will be the topic. EMS newer Ambulance: The VLA-EMS group is looking at the purchase of a 1989 E350 Medtech ambulance. The purchase request has been signed by Jody Bolyard (NRAO Safety Manager) and a latter sent from Skip to Ted in Charlottesville, VA to send to NSF for approval. Fire Brigade: After October 1st the fire brigade would like to set up some training through the NM Fire academe to training some of the members in Firemen one & two. This will take approximately one to two weeks (hopefully). We need to keep an eye on safety around the site. Jon Spargo has noticed a lot of employees not wearing seat belts while driving site vehicles. OTHER Discussion (Other) Quarterly updates for EVLA WBS manpower contributed effort. Accurate estimates should be submitted quarterly for these updates. These will be followed by a new PAN reflecting EVLA contributed effort. Pans will be updated quarterly as well. LWA?Long Wavelength Array- The southwest consortium made up of several southwestern universities is proposing to place a prototype array within the VLA square mile. These antennas are approx. 1 meter high and are a dipole type antenna. The array consists of a couple hundred antennas and will take up about a 50 square meter area. Possible sites include north east of the dump, south east of the AAB or between the Visitor center and VSQ?s. This project is not a NRAO project but we may provide trenching for fiber and power. Announcements: 1.) November 15 is the deadline for NRAO High School scholarship applications. 2.) Skip Lagoyda reports that we have direct bill arrangements with the following hotels: MK King Kamehameha, Kona, HI BR Omak Inn, Omak, WA OV Ramada Inn, Bishop, CA FD Best Western, Alpine, TX KP Ramada Palo Verde, Tucson, AZ NL AmericInn, Coralville, IA SC Chenay Bay, Saint Croix, VI Depending on season and availability, the rates at these hotels are always very reasonable. Please have travelers in your divisions visiting these sites use these establishments to minimize cash advances. Thanks.