[mmaimcal] ImCal meeting notes and response from Guilloteau

[Al Wootten]

I added some minutes to the agenda for yesterday, and got in touch with
Stephane about progress and a telecon.
Stephane asked about the work Leonia was doing (the message from
Holger was somewhat out of context) to which I responded, in part:
...
The antenna group asked for a configuration with 30m roads, which Leonia
has also designed.  One question was posed by Leonia yesterday--does
the increase in safety and speed justify the loss of brightness temperature
sensitivity.  Mark suggested that one way of looking at this is how much 
longer do we have to integrate to get the same sensitivity, and how does this 
compare with the time saving--60% longer or so for say 28% doesn't seem 
worthwhile.
But we really need to compare surface brightness at the same resolution.
Including tapering, the surface brightness and time problems become
less obviously different.  Leonia and Mark are working on these things
now.  I think this is rapidly converging.
To which Stephane replied:
    I have done some work on that too, and could give you some numbers here.
    One of the difficulty is the inclusion of the ACA. The ACA doesn't
really match
    the brightness sensitivity of ALMA if the most compact configuration
design is used,
    unless we are willing to have 20 or so antennas in ACA...
    The 30-m road solution would lessen the problem.
    Is Mark working on that too ?

AW: I'm not sure.  (Mark?)
  Bryan has published the new
mask (memo soon if not today), Radford is on site and Bryan will be there
on the weekend.  I think it is time for another configuration
teleconference,
to settle any remaining problems with the compact configuration and move
on to the larger ones.  The Chilean adventure will be over by the week
of May 14, so I propose a teleconference that week.  How about, say
1400UT on 18 May?

SG:    Let's decide that in May 10-11...
AW: I propose to send an email to the group trying to fill in missing pieces
in email traffic as above and suggesting a telecon date.  Comments?

SG:    Good. That would help. The decision on the "most compact" configuration
    is a critical one and deserves proper understanding of all the
constraints.

Clear skies,
Al