[Escoordminutes] ES Division Coordination Meeting minutes-June

[Lew Serna]

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


BUDGET —Budgets are being spent down quickly be sure to monitor your 
spending. Stimulus money to the tune of about $5.5M is reported for NRAO 
to be spent by 2011. No firm word on how it is being doled out but it is 
reportedly earmarked for infrastructure projects. It is likely that some 
ES Division items on submitted lists will be funded. We are also 
awaiting news from Mark McKinnon on gearbox funding for training, oil 
and gears. E-Array project funds are also being sought which will mostly 
be contract work but likely some ES Division work will be involved.

PARTS RESTOCKING SERVICES.- The Auto and Track groups are trying out the 
automatic restocking by Fastenal. Reports are that the program is 
working very well for them. Other groups such as Antenna Mechanics and 
HVAC may be interested. Supervisors are asked to provide input on their 
groups’ interest.

Surplus Tires—the pile of bad tires is growing. Business division is 
looking for a place to take them to because the Socorro dump does not 
want to accept them. The cost for disposal of bad tires rests with the 
Auto Shop. No action until further notice.

VLBA – The Mauna Kea (09/10/09-09/16/09), and Los Alamos visits remain 
for this fiscal year. A Mechanical Visit to Los Alamos is scheduled for 
7/14-7/16. Eric has provided Mechanics 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 and is 
expected in FY2010. Work is preferred in the fall not in the winter 
since it requires much time to cure.

The pillow block bore dimension of the SC wheel assembly was measured 
and is ok. No good reason for the bearing failure can be found.

A check to ensure that the he warehouse has stocked remainder of Wheel 
assembly parts necessary to replace all remaining original wheel 
assemblies including a spare should be made. HN, MK and KP require one 
each assembly to be replaced. The warehouse should stock one set of 
parts but no more.

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. 
Tony has been transferred to track crew so another person has to be 
trained to repair. 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 continue on 
Maintenance Visits.

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

Some work installing Ka band feeds may be required in the near future.

Guy is checking into using and testing new materials (more affordable) 
for making spare dichroic panels.

AZ BEARINGS – Four Bearings were shipped to Rotek for repair. Only 1 of 
the four bearings was refurbishable. A second bearing inner race was 
touched up and the bearing will be reassembled, usable as an emergency 
spare only and has been labeled “emergency spare only”. A third new 
bearing is fabricated and shipped. There is a 2 year minimum lead time 
for new and refurbished bearings from Rotek.

Antenna 5 bearing and AZ 2 gearbox is changed with Bob Broilo as 
supervisor. Bolts for three antennas have been ordered. 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 in line for replacement in 
2010. This is an EVLA antenna. 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 for repair. 
12 bearings have been replaced to date. It is desirable to order 5 new 
bearings before long.



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. Jon will recommend 
that Site Techs do spot repairs until enough funds are available for a 
follow up painting program.

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, CN7 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. Modification 
of the CN6 plates and BN5 are complete and the plates are reinstalled. 
This will solve the immediate problem of setting down antennas on these 
foundations.

Markers have been set for taking measurements to try and see which 
pillars are actually moving and at what rate. No change has been 
observed between loaded and unloaded measurements however better; finer 
measurements need to be taken throughout the year.

If the pillars are moving apart it is felt that there may be no 
practical way of preventing the movement. It is believed that if this is 
the case it would be more desirable/practical to build an additional 
foundation next to the bad ones. Another option is that if the pillar 
movement is very slow it may be adequate to modify/redesign the mounting 
plates in order to make up and correct for the movement. In any case it 
would be desirable to get an outside structural firm to inspect the 
foundations and make a recommendation.


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. No progress..

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. This project is complete.

VLA AZ GEARBOX’s (Antenna 5 etc..)--Antenna 5’s #2 gearbox experienced a 
catastrophic failure failed on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. Antenna 5 #1 
gearbox was ok. We replaced the bad gearbox with the spare gearbox. The 
bad gearbox is salvageable and will be repaired. Several gears will be 
fabricated in a shop out of Carlsbad, NM for around $800ea.

VLA Az Gearboxes are due for oil changes. A plan to change around 10 
antennas per year is being formulated beginning with remaining 6 VLA 
antennas and then continuing with all EVLA antennas @ approx. 10/ year. 
Training and equipment will be required. Guy Stanzione will be in charge 
of preparing for the gearbox inspections, training & repairs.

VLA FRM—One VLA FRM focus ring gear was damaged last year. The spare FRM 
was cannibalized in order to repair the Antenna. A new ring has been 
ordered for repairing the cannibalized spare at a cost of $3K and should 
arrive soon. FRM inspections will resume during the next antenna 
overhaul cycle to check for possible FRM overhaul tasks.

BALLAST DOORS-- New project is proposed to convert manual opening of 
ballast car doors to hydraulic controlled opening of the doors for 
dispensing ballast from the cars. Much dust is created and the operator 
is too close to the doors to be able to observe the dispensing properly 
and safely. This Project will cost around $8K.

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 is installed on the door 
closest to Ops, to be used prior to entering the shielded Correlator 
room. For controlling traffic to the correlator, a special one way door 
will be installed at the end of the elevator hallway. It will be used 
for exiting the correlator area only but will be capable of being 
propped open for passing equipment through if necessary. The doors are 
in and will be installed next week.

Safety has scheduled fire alarm testing with Operations on August 25, 
2009. Bob will coordinate that effort with the annual battery maintenance.


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. 
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 has used a thermal imager to see where we are 
losing most of the heat in the feed cone. An analysis and recommendation 
will be made as soon as time permits.

Antennas will remain in the D array for 7 months.

As antenna #7 goes on line it is desirable to replace some of the early 
EVLA antennas with newer version EVLA antennas. Older versions will 
begin to be decommissioned (since the VLA Correlator cannot operate more 
than 22 antennas) for upgrades in the field. There will also be a period 
of 2 months (Jan. & Feb.) that there will be no observing due to the 
Correlator being shutdown . This is an opportunity to bring older 
antennas up to date.


SAFETY REPORT: No Safety Officer present

Safety Manager, Bob Daniels will visit the VLA on July 13. Training on 
Hazard recognition and mitigation is forthcoming. Training on Arc Flash 
protection.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

ETK Training (Electronic Timekeeping) Electronic Timekeeping—— For 
/exempt/ staff members, we are requiring that you utilize /both/ the ETK 
system and the paper timesheets beginning with the current pay period 
April 21^st through May 20^th . All NRAO /non-exempt/ staff members are 
required to utilize /both/ the ETK system and paper timesheets until 
further notice. /Supervisors/ will approve the paper timesheets as usual 
but will also approve all ETK entries at the end of the pay periods.

* *

*2008 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION PROCESS *

*June 30 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 17 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 31 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