[Escoordminutes] ES Coordination Mtg. Minutes-Nov.

[Lew Serna]

Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, 
November 27, 2007, at 10:30 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending 
were Lew Serna, Ramon Gutierrez, Bob Broilo, Peggy Perley, Guy 
Stanzione, Jim Ruff, Gene Cole and Ken Lakies.

BUDGET —Resume spending under the assumption that you have 80% of last 
years operating budget. Money for the overhaul of the West Generator has 
been allocated and its overhaul began on 11/26. Track materials cannot 
be ordered until final allocations have been made. Final budget 
allocations could arrive as early as January. EVLA purchases should 
proceed as required. Funds for projects such as VLBA SC and FD elevation 
bearing replacements (approx. $30K ea.) and VLBA BR foundation repair 
(approx $15K) are being sought.

VLBA TT Trips— Tiger Team visits to OV, LA, NL and St Croix will be 
planned for 2008. Dates TBD. We will try to replace one AZ wheel 
assembly at each site that requires one from now on. Antenna mechanics 
should ensure we have one wheel assembly ready for each site being 
visited. The paint on the HN subreflector was deteriorating badly but 
its surface contour seems to be in reasonably good shape. It might be 
possible to simply repaint the surface to ready it for installation the 
next scheduled SC maintenance visit. St. Croix will likely require an 
extended Visit. TT Visits should be planned to avoid conflict with VLA 
reconfiguration and EVLA overhaul schedules.

The BR foundation will require repairs in the near future due to 
deterioration at an approximate cost of $15K. Elevation bearings grease 
samples taken at FD and SC are showing metal flakes. A plan to replace 
these bearings should be made soon. Estimated repair costs are around 
$30K-$35/ant. If this trend continues it may be necessary to replace the 
elevation bearings with a more robust bearing. MK dish panels that were 
damaged were replaced. The damaged panels need to be repaired for spares.

A VLBA planning meeting is scheduled for December 12, 9:00 AM @ CB LL 
Conference Room.

AZ BEARINGS –Next Bearing replacement will occur in summer of 2008. An 
estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change 
can occur. Parts from the bearings removed from antennas are needed for 
measuring and fitting of new parts and should be stored until they are 
scheduled to be shipped to Rotek for repair. Antenna 14, 16 & 18’s 
bearings have been shipped to Rotek for refurbishment. There is a 12-18 
week lead time for delivery on a refurbished bearing. Delivery of these 
bearings would be around May-July of 2008.
Grease samples show that antennas 28, 10, 20, are good candidates for 
the next bearing changes. Large metal pieces were recently found on 
Antenna 28’s AZ bearing grease. This bearing will be replaced in FY2008. 
There is one good Azimuth bearing on hand. One spare bearing should be 
maintained at all times in the event a catastrophic failure occurs 
however, it may be acceptable to use this bearing in early summer if we 
are assured of getting the other three bearings in late summer. If 
possible bearing replacement will occur at a rate of one per year in 
order to maintain the EVLA outfitting schedule. We should try to avoid 
scheduling conflicts between bearing changes, Tiger Team trips and 
reconfigurations.


PROJECTS:
Control building Stairways— The Control Building Stairways are being 
replaced due to their rapid deterioration. The stairways will be 
replaced with an improved design conforming to ADA. The western stairway 
is complete. A new concrete landing will have to be poured at the base 
of the eastern stairway. The eastern stairway is deemed hazardous and is 
currently barricaded to prevent its use but a more substantial barricade 
is still needed. Work on the eastern stairway will continue as the 
workload permits. No further progress.

ST Croix Painting— St. Croix Antenna is undergoing extensive repair and 
painting work due to its severe corrosion problems. Work began on 
September 10 and is scheduled to be complete by December 17. Contractors 
finished water blasting the structure. Painting continues. Ray McFarlin 
will travel to St. Croix on the first week of December to begin 
preparing the antenna for operation.

VLA ANTENNA FOUNDATION MOVEMENT— A problem with north arm antenna 
foundation movement needs to be addressed. It appears that the two 
rearward pillars have been slowly separating over the years at several 
stations with BN5 being the worst. They have separated far enough in 
about 33 years that 2 bolts can no longer be used to secure the antenna 
pads to the foundation pillars. It is possible that these pillars were 
installed this way since they have been problematic since day one. 
Markers have been set and measurements taken to try and see which 
pillars are actually moving if any. More readings will be taken this 
week. It is obvious that the plates need to be repositioned so this work 
should be done as soon as practical.

VLA LIGHTING- All high mercury content light bulbs should be eliminated 
from stock. A plan to replace all ballasts and bulbs to efficient 
electronic ballasts is initiated. In addition to removing the high 
mercury content bulbs the savings in kilowatt usage would payback the 
initial cost in less than 2 years. Skip is funding this energy project. 
The Control Building is currently being changed over. Other buildings 
will follow. Ballasts for the Control Building have arrived for 
installation.

GENERATOR REPAIRS— Recent operation of generators revealed that the 
current site load could not be carried by a single generator. The 
generator operating hours indicate that a top end overhaul was 
necessary. Money has been allocated to proceed with top end overhauls 
for both generators. It is increasingly important to have reliable 
generators for EVLA operations since both generators will need to come 
on line to carry EVLA site loads. East Generator overhaul is complete. 
The West Generator overhaul has begun and should be complete by mid 
December. A test to see if two generators can support array slewing 
should be made once both generators are overhauled and winter loads are 
evident sometime in January. A plan for conducting the test and 
monitoring voltages in the correlator and other areas of concern should 
be made.

VISITOR CENTER-- The visitor center theater will undergo a remodel. 
Lighting, Doors, and a Projector are being ordered. Basically the step 
seating will be replaced with theater type seating and the movie 
equipment will be upgraded. New carpet and tile will also be installed. 
This project is funded by the EPO and Business divisions. Most of the 
material has arrived and project should begin around mid January.

POWER MONITOR— A plan to install power monitoring equipment in the Hatch 
gear will require a power outage. Scheduling for an opportune time of 
installation is being investigated. The preferred time for installation 
would be the fall when the weather dry and calm. The instrumentation has 
been ordered.


EVLA;
Civil--A preventive measure to test batteries and lubricate the 
Correlator Door will be implemented by the ES Electrical group. The 
final cleaning from ceiling to floor has been accomplished. The cleaning 
underneath the computer flooring will follow installation of cabling. 
The design for cable support in the Correlator Room will be provided by 
ES Division. Station Rack loading has changed and will need to be 
accommodated by changing breakers or adding breakers and running 
parallel lines to the racks. More information will be gathered after the 
upcoming face-to-face meeting in December. The DRAFT Correlator 
commissioning plan will be sent to ES Division for input.

EVLA Antennas— Feeds: Contracts for casting S-band and laminating of the 
S-band are underway. S-Band rings are being cut in preparation for 
assembly. For efficiency S-band feeds will be laminated two at a time 
every 8 weeks. The second S-Band Christmas tree will built using L-Band 
Christmas tree parts once the L-Band lamination work is complete.

The hoist at the vertex is getting new cables and D-rings are available 
to attach harnesses for those doing hoisting operations. Training 
sessions for hoisting operations will be conducted for different groups 
separately and will be announced as they occur.

Reminder to remove Lockout/tagout when it is not necessary to leave the 
antenna locked out. Please leave antenna in operational state whenever 
possible.

Antenna 1 inspection will occur on Tuesday 12/4/07.


SAFETY REPORT :
18 Accidents to date; up 3 accidents from last year. Required confined 
space training was held in early November. Follow up confined space 
entry will be held for those groups who actually work in confined 
spaces. New EMS Radio is in.


ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Happy Holidays

OTHER:
RADIOS— All VLA radios must go to narrow band. Glen Mauger will initiate 
reprogramming of all site radios for narrow band operation and will add 
an additional channel. Glen will contact individuals with radios. We 
solicit your cooperation.