[Escoordminutes] ES Div Coord. mtg. January minutes

[Lew Serna]

Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, 
January 25, 2005, at 10 am, in the LL CB conference room.  Attending 
were Eric Carlowe, Ramon Gutierrez, Lew Serna, Pat Lewis, Guy Stanzione, 
Steve Aragon, Gene Cole, Brent Avery, Bob Broilo, James Sullivan, Jim 
Ruff, Tom Frost and Jon Thunborg.

BUDGET   Serna— We are currently operating under the premise of having 
80% of our "normal" (last years) budget.  Restrict spending to urgent 
purchases until the budget is known hopefully by March sometime.
There is no secretarial replacement due to budget constraints so 
secretarial services will be limited to doing critical ES Division 
activities until we can get more help. Areas most affected are Safety 
Division credit card record keeping and some services related to 
purchase requisitions.  Files for ES requisitions will still be 
maintained but copies will not be sent out. Other minor services will be 
curtailed please bear with us.

VLBA Trips for 2005 (targeted) — MK trip has been replaced with a SC 
trip due to urgent repairs are required at SC.  MK maintenance visit 
will occur in year 2006; HN 6/13/05-6/19/05; SC 4/7/05-4/25/05; LA 
9/19/05-9/25/05. The VLBA SC site antenna is in urgent need of 
structural repair.  Some repairs to quad legs, stairways, platforms and 
other structural components will be made. At the same time FRM balancing 
and troubleshooting will occur.  Cost is estimated at around $28K.  The 
SC bound container must ship no later than March 3, 2005.

Owens Valley Wheel replacement/Kitt Peak Digital Tach replacement—The 
Owens Valley VLBA antenna needs a drive wheel assembly replacement in 
addition to an elevation motor replacement, idler wheel alignment and 
installation of modified motor filter boxes.  A trip is planned for Feb. 
14 through Feb. 17.  On the same week the Digital Tachs and ACU 
backplane will be installed at Kitt Peak.

AZ Bearings.  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 
& #16’s bearing will be shipped to Rotek for possible refurbishment 
hopefully sometime in FY 2005. 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 #18 should enter the 
AAB late April for outfitting and bearing change.  Bearing change should 
be planned for sometime in May to avoid Tiger Team trips and Antenna 
Moves in June.  Try to prepare as far in advance as possible.  It is 
possible that visitors from Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK will 
witness the separation.  Antenna 20 bearing replacement will be 
scheduled for later in the summer this year.

  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.   A target date for installing the pocket mill 
bearing is 3/9/05. The mill will need to be tested prior to the next 
bearing change in May.

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 made and panels were adjusted in September. 
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. No 
conclusive results have been obtained at Pie Town consequently this 
project is ON HOLD.

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 has funded the prototype and design work is in 
progress. No funding commitments are made for retrofitting.

Control Building Stairways.  After repeated unsuccessful attempts to 
stop the corrosion on the Control Building Stairways we are forced to 
replace the stairways with an improved design conforming to ADA. 
Estimated cost to do this for both stairways is $12K.  A kick plate on 
one staircase has fallen off due to corrosion and the stairway has been 
closed to the public.  In order to open the stairway to the public, 
modification to the stairways, to conform to ADA (American Disabilities 
Act) standards are necessary.

EVLA STATUS
Production Antenna Outfitting—With EVLA going into full production, 
Ramon Gutierrez the overhaul supervisor will assume responsibility for 
controlling the antenna outfitting until it is ready to turn over to the 
Electronic Division coordinator.  Ramon will also chair the EVLA 
outfitting meeting currently being held every week or so.  The next 
meeting will be Thursday 1/28/05, 11 a.m. in the Control Building video 
conference room (upstairs).

Transporter Generators- Two John Deere 70 KW generators are ordered to 
replace the existing 40 and 31 KW Detroit generators on the 
transporters.   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.  It is desirable to provide an electrical plug for 
running auxiliary pumps during bearing changes at the same time that the 
generator work is being done.  Bob will follow up on delivery of 
generators.

All L Band (and possibly S band) rings will be fabricated at the VLA. 
The old Subreflector Shop will become the new feed ring shop. Review of 
manpower requirements indicates that another antenna mechanic may be 
necessary to accommodate this additional work.  We will wait until 
several newly hired mechanics are trained before making a decision on 
hiring another mechanic.

ModComp relocation will occur on Feb 14 with an anticipated power 
outages of 2 days. This outage should mainly affect the operations area 
only.  A 1 hour outage will affect the entire Control Building.
Roaming network outages will occur at different parts of the VLA Site at 
different times until the network equipment is relocated.  These network 
outages will be announced and should last no longer than 30 minutes at a 
time.  One final outage will last approx. 2 hours.  Outages will be 
planned to minimize the impact on operations.
It is possible that temporary power can be provided to the Control 
Building fire alarm system.  Fire Alarm Status during this move should 
be reported to operations, fire brigade and to all hands in the event it 
is inoperable.

QUARTERLY REPORT UPDATE      With secretarial shortage, Lori Appel will 
assume responsibility for collecting information and will contact 
supervisors for updates, please cooperate promptly.

SAFETY REPORT...
Accident/Incidents Report:
NRAO-NM ended the year with 28 accident/incidents for 2004.

2005, Year to date we have had (2) two accident/incidents so far. Nether 
one of these accidents involved an ES Div. employee.

Annual Hearing Test:
On Tuesday, February 01, 2005, a mobile test unit from W. H. Harlan & 
Associates, Inc., in Albuquerque will be on site beginning at 0900 MST 
to conduct hearing tests.  These tests are part of our hearing 
conservation program.

Next Monthly All Hands Safety Meeting:
The next all hands safety meeting will be held on January 27, @ 3:00 pm 
in the VLA Cafe. Safety eye glass program and the safety footwear will 
be on the topics.

OTHER:
Proposed VHF Observing System: The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory 
(SAO) is proposing a 320 MHz observing system similar to what is used 
for the existing 74 MHz.
After an initial test period, if the proposed VHF observing system is 
approved, the SOA will build and deliver 28 dipole-receiver packages for 
deployment and testing. Installation on each antenna will require 
manpower by NRAO operations with SAO engineering and technical staff 
available to assist.

  ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The mileage reimbursement rate for NRAO authorized travel using 
privately owned vehicles is 40.5 cents per mile for the period of 
January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005.  This rate is based on Internal 
Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and is updated annually.

SAFETY GLASSES: Notification to staff of the procedures for getting 
safety glasses is forthcoming in the next all hands safety meeting. In 
the interim, we can still use Wilson Optical mail order. With the 
departure of Jon, we will no longer be able to provide fittings for 
employee safety glasses. This is not a policy change, but a practice 
change. It has always been the responsibility of the employee to have 
the glasses fitted properly. The safety glasses program has been and 
still remains a fully funded safety program.
Similarly changes in the Safety Shoe program will be announced at the 
next mandatory all hands safety meeting.