[Escoordminutes] ES Division Coordination Mtg Minutes-March

[Lew Serna]

Minutes for the ES Division Coordination Meeting held on Tuesday, March 
31, 2009, at 10:30 am, in the LL CB conference room. Attending were Lew 
Serna, Charley Chavez, Bob Broilo, Gene Cole, Brent Avery, Ramon 
Gutierrez, Guy Stanzione, Jim Ruff, Chuck Thompson and Jon Thunborg.


BUDGET — The continuing resolution has been lifted. Budgets are the same 
as last year. No track material will be purchased this year so far. We 
have 1200 ties remaining and track work will consist of rebuilding 
intersections and making urgent repairs. Fuel tank compliance has been 
specially funded but no other special projects are funded thus far. 
Several lists containing spares and projects that might qualify for 
government stimulus funds have been submitted. Please send me any spare 
parts lists we might purchase with these funds and that will save us 
operations money later on. Some candidates for this list could include 
Azimuth Bearings, Wheel Assemblies,


VLBA -- MK (09/10/09-09/16/09), and KP (4/28/09-5/05/09) are scheduled 
for this year (FY2009). A Mechanical Visit to Los Alamos will need to be 
made during the double maintenance days in June. Eric has come up with a 
task list for LA.

The Brewster and North Liberty foundations continue to degrade and will 
require urgent repairs in the near future at an approximate cost of $15K 
each. Foundation work has been placed on the funding wish list.

The warehouse has stocked remainder of Wheel assembly parts necessary to 
replace all remaining original wheel assemblies including a spare. Also 
need to measure pillow block bore dimension on pillow block that was 
brought back from St. Croix.

We will continue in FY2010 with Maintenance visits to HN, FD and BR.

Repair of the subreflector brought back from St. Croix is in progress.

MK dish panels that were damaged were replaced. The damaged panels will 
need to be repaired for spares.

A Servo Preload Modification has been designed by Paul Johnson (LA) and 
Eric Carlowe for swapping servo preload in order to load the opposite 
side of the servo gearbox gears. This should double the life of the 
gears in the gearbox. Outfitting of modification will begin at KP 
following successful tests at LA this month.

It is possible that passports will be required in future visits to St. 
Croix.

AZ BEARINGS – Four Bearings have been shipped to Rotek for repair. Only 
1 of the four bearings was refurbishable. A second bearing inner race 
will be touched up and the bearing will be reassembled. This will give 
us a usable emergency spare but should not be considered for a scheduled 
replacement and should be labeled “emergency spare only” as soon as it 
arrives. An acceptance trip to witness assembly of the second bearing 
has been made. A third bearing will need a completely new inner ring 
fabricated. A visit to witness assembly and acceptance of the third 
bearing is tentatively scheduled for April and tentative delivery of all 
three bearings is April. There is a 2 year minimum lead time for new and 
refurbished bearings from Rotek.

Older grease samples show that antennas 25,10 and 20, are candidates for 
scheduled bearing changes. New grease samples of all VLA antennas have 
been taken. Antenna 25 has the worst sample and will be next in line for 
bearing replacement sometime in August ‘09. This is an EVLA antenna. An 
estimated three weeks in the AAB are required before a bearing change 
can occur. Bob will measure pre post fits to help determine support for 
the idea that Antenna 25 should be next. 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 for repair. An 
estimated 1 month will be required to replace the AZ bearing for antenna 
25. Bolts for three antennas have been ordered this year.

.


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 and the steps replaced. The eastern stairway 
barricaded to prevent its use. There is no urgency for this project 
since safety has declared that there is no need for this stairway as a 
means of emergency egress. Work on the eastern stairway will continue as 
the workload permits. No further progress.

ST Croix PAINT MAINTENANCE VISIT—It is Apparent that a follow up 
painting program should be initiated preferably in the fall. It is 
desirable to send a crew to St. Croix to continue painting areas where 
bleed through is evident. If this is not possible due to budgetary 
constraints, then perhaps the site techs could do the painting for 3 
weeks straight with hired help sometime in the fall.

VLA ANTENNA FOUNDATION MOVEMENT— A problem with north arm antenna 
foundation movement needs to be addressed. It appears that the two 
rearward station pillars have been slowly separating over the years at 
CN6, BN3 and BN5 with BN5 being the worst. They have separated far 
enough in about 33 years that 1 bolt (one on a reward pad) can no longer 
be used to secure the antenna pad to the foundation pillar. Markers have 
been set for taking measurements to try and see which pillars are 
actually moving and at what rate. The plates from BN5 and CN6 have been 
removed for modification in the machine shop. No change has been 
observed between loaded and unloaded measurements however better, finer 
measurements need to be taken throughout the year. Modification of the 
CN6 plates and BN5 are complete and the plates are reinstalled.

If the pillars are moving apart it is felt that there is no practical 
way of preventing the movement. It would be more desirable/practical to 
build an additional foundation next to the bad ones. If the pillar 
movement is very slow it may be enough to modify/redesign the mounting 
plates in order to make up and correct for the movement that has 
occurred thus far.


GENERATOR REPAIRS— Minor leaks were noticed at the engine rear seals and 
it is desirable to install a better fuel filtering system. A bearing on 
the generator unit also should be replacement as a PM. This work would 
cost around $15K and has been put on the funding wish list.

HOT WATER LOOP. A project is submitted to install a hot water loop using 
Correlator waste heat: The difference between the summer load and winter 
load is mostly due
to heating (at least 300kW). However, even during the coldest mornings 
the cooling tower is ventilating correlator waste heat into the 
atmosphere. We already use some of the heat in the Control Building, but 
by extending the hot water loop to other buildings, we may be able to 
reduce our power demand. The WIDAR correlator will have an even higher 
heat output to work with.

This project mainly consists of burying a hot water loop and using heat 
exchangers similar to what many complexes of buildings use. Payback on 
this project could be as quick as 1 year. Bob Broilo will investigate 
and provide further information.

125vdc GENERATOR SUPPLY MODIFICATION. A safety switch and other related 
wiring changes to the VLA Standby Generator Battery supply have been 
completed in order to make servicing the batteries a safer operation and 
without interruption of the battery supply to the generator system 
controls. New safety procedures and training will have to be provided to 
personnel who service the batteries.

EVLA;
Civil— Correlator Room: The Air Conditioning system needs to be tied in 
to the CPCC for controlling of air handlers when desirable and during 
emergency shutdowns. ESD monitoring equipment will be installed for use 
prior to entering the shielded Correlator room.


EVLA Antennas—The Antenna Group must complete mechanical overhauls to 23 
antennas to meet the retrofit schedule for EVLA design in FY2009. This 
goal is currently on schedule

A total of 20 S-band (2-4 GHz) feed horns will be fabricated in FY2009. 
Fifteen S-band feeds are assembled so far. All rings have been cut for 
the S-band.

The Ku-band (12-18 GHz) feed horns will also be fabricated in FY2009. 
This is on schedule.

A prototype insulating of the feed cone/vertex room is done in EVLA 
antenna 25 in an effort to improve temperature stability in the feed 
cone/vertex room. Bob will monitor and compare antenna 25 vertex temps 
to other antennas.

In the event remaining VLA antennas are shut down after the 22nd EVLA 
antenna is complete it may be desirable to remove power and complete 
some of the outfitting tasks in the field for some groups.

SAFETY REPORT:
Three Accidents for ES Division so far this year. Accidents and 
Incidents should only be discussed internally and not away from work.

Lew Serna and Peggy Perley have been charged with developing a plan to 
improve the safety program at NRAO NM by the end of the month of April.

All employees are urged to attend monthly safety meetings. Safety 
committee meetings are usually held on the second Thursday of the month 
at 09:30am.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

ETK Training (Electronic Timekeeping) Electronic Timekeeping—A meeting 
will take place on April 7 to determine the status of ETK. An 
announcement will follow announcing the switchover to date to ETK. 
Meanwhile keep using and testing the system.

*2008 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROCESS TIME LINE*

*April 1 Employee self-appraisal process begins *– Supervisors begin 
soliciting information about employee work performance from other 
supervisors and coworkers. Supervisors will conduct brief individual or 
group meetings with employees to discuss the upcoming process and to 
distribute copies of the appropriate performance appraisal forms 
including a list of goals that were set last year. Exempt employees are 
required to complete a self-appraisal. Although non-exempt employees are 
not required to complete a self-appraisal, they should be given a copy 
of the non-exempt appraisal form and encouraged to complete it. Exempt 
employees begin completing the appraisal form by identifying any changes 
in their key responsibilities and reporting on their progress toward 
achieving the goals set last year. Any other significant accomplishments 
they may have had during the year should also be identified. Finally 
employees should identify goals for next year.

*May 1 Employee self-appraisals due – *Employees return their 
self-appraisal forms to their supervisors with the appropriate sections 
completed. Supervisors begin writing employee evaluations based on their 
observations, coworker feedback, and the self-appraisal completed by the 
employee. Supervisor reviews the draft goals for the coming year and 
modifies as appropriate.

*June 2 Appraisal Forms Completed *– Supervisor reviews completed 
performance appraisal forms with division head and receives approval. 
Supervisor begins scheduling and holding evaluation meetings with employees.

*June 30 Employee Meetings Concluded *– All evaluation meetings to be 
concluded and appraisal forms signed by the employee. Employees should 
be given sufficient time (at least 24 hours) to review and comment on 
the evaluation. Based on information provided by the employee, 
supervisors should make corrections and changes as appropriate.

*July 7 All Forms Delivered to HR *– All of the original completed and 
signed appraisal forms must be forwarded to the appropriate Human 
Resources Office. A copy of the signed appraisal should be provided to 
the employee