[mmaimcal] 2/28/05 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO

Mon Feb 28 18:19:57 EST 2005

Folks,

Comments, questions corrections please.  The first try went out as an
attachment; sorry.  

Al

                       BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
                            February 28 -- March 14, 2005

******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*********************************
Norio Kaifu, Director of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan,
and Masato Ishiguro, ALMA-J Project Director visit Charlottesville 28 Feb, 
giving talks on NAOJ and Japanese plans for ALMA.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Adrian Russell, Project Manager for North America, arrived in Charlottesville.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Meadows was presented a STAR award for his work on the ALMA Test
Facility.  Congratulations, Jack!
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
The ASAC met 24-25 Feb in snowy Garching to consider rebaselining options for
ALMA.  A meeting to discuss results of recent prototype antenna testing was held
26-27 Feb in Munich.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
ALMA thanks retiring ANASAC members David Hollenbach, Dan Jaffee, Luis Rodriguez,
Dave Sanders, Phil Myers and Dick Plambeck as they rotate off of the committee.
We welcom new members Paul Ho, Crystal Brogan, Andrew Baker, John Bally,
 Mel Wright, and Jonathan Williams onto the committee for a three year stint.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at 
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
*******************************************************************************
General Happenings
Santiago:  Leo Bronfman became Director of Cerro Calan of the University of
Chile.
The PMCS switch over to Santiago offices is complete (Feb 18th).  Antonio
Cruz, Cesar Ocampo, and Vicente Ruiz have started with the JAO 23 Feb, as
members of the PMCS group.  For the phone book:
Vicente Ruiz:
        vruiz at alma.cl
        JAO office: +56-2-467-6148
        Mobile in Chile: +56-8-549-7631
Cesar Ocampo:
        cocampo at alma.cl
        JAO office: +56-2-467-6144
        Mobile in Chile: +56-9-779-1606
Antonio Cruz:
        acruz at alma.cl
        JAO office: +56-2-467-6145
        Mobile in Chile: +56-9-519-2384

OSF: A contingent from AURA and Gemini visited the site on 25 February.
Mass excavation at the OSF Technical Facilities continues. Crushing of 
excavation material in order to provide fill at the OSF Technical Facilities 
started on 17-Feb-2005 The construction of 22 beds at the Contractors Camp 
continues. Completion will be by end February 2005. Road maintenance with 
ESO equipment and contracted personnel resumed on 17-Feb-2005. Currently 
there are approximately 30 persons working at the site.

Tucson:  1st prototype of revised LO Photonics Line Length Corrector (LLC) 
and 2nd Laser Synthesizer ready for testing. Second LLC under construction.
Holdaway delivered to the ASAC a study of the increase of imaging capability 
as additional elements are added to the array.
Phase drift measurements are underway in Tucson.

ATF: Weather has hampered testson the prototype antennas.  Testing will be
moving to a three week period of 10 second fast switching cycles on the antennas.
Stand Back!  Some out-of-focus holography tests and optical tests remain.

AOC: Design review for revised layout of DTS Formatter to be presented next week. 
Revision addresses high speed issues. Evaluating alternate design for gain 
equalizers on ALMA IF downconverters.

NAASC: Ed Fomalont joins the ALMA SSR as subsystem scientist for correlator.
Wilson, Wootten and Beasley produced ALMA article for Valparaiso conference
The Cool Universe: Observing Cosmic Beginnings  held 2004 October 4-8. 

NTC: Work continued on the evaluation receiver electronics to allow phase 
locking of the 1st LO Gunn oscillators using the photonic LO reference.
An essential test to resolve the leak rate issue is currently underway at 
NRAO. Preliminary results show that the cryostat has a substantial margin 
on cooling capacity.
B6 (1.3mm) Pre-production Cartridge #1 tests continue.
The 15 dB beam sidelobe decreased to 23 dB below beam peak in the cartridge 
test dewar after the IRAM IR filters were replaced with low-reflection GoreTex 
and absorber was placed on the horn mounting plate.  Construction of 
pre-production cartridge #2 was nearly completed.
The first Band 9 WCA was delivered.
Review of technical specifications for CVR (microwave reference) 
scheduled for CV 29 March.
All Station Racks and Correlator Racks for the first quadrant have had bins 
and motherboards installed.

*******************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EST )
 Mon  28 
 9:30 AM-10:30 AM: NA Project Office Staff Meeting
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
11:30-12:30  Dr Norio Kaifu "Ongoing Astronomy and Future Plans of NAOJ"
12:40- 1:15  Dr Masato Ishiguro "ALMA Japan"
 Tue  1 March 
 4:00 PM-5:00 PM: Regular MMAImCal meeting for Science IPT Telecon cancelled        
 Wed  2
 2:00 PM-3:00 PM: NAASC meeting  CV-ER311/TUC-550A/Soc280
 Thu  3         
9:30 AM-11:00 AM: Management IPT Teleconference
11:00 AM-12:00PM: CCB Telecon
 Fri  4         
 Sat  5        
 Sun  6        
 Mon  7        
 9:30 AM-10:30 AM: NA Project Office Staff Meeting
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
 Tue  8
 4:00 PM-5:00PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested 
                                 parties) (434)296-7082
             Agenda: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/         
 Wed  9 
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Software Science Req. Group Teleconference
 Thu  10 
9:30 AM-11:00 AM: Management IPT Teleconference
 Fri  11         
 Sat  12         
 Sun  13         
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ******************************
ALMA Calendar  

    * 20 Mar 2005 -- Philadelphia ICASSP/IEEE meeting, Philadelphia
    * 22-24 March 2005 -- JAO/IPT Meeting, Garching
    * 29 March 2005 -- CVR review, Charlottesville
    * 4 April -- Executive meeting, Pasadena
    * 5-6 April 2005 -- AMAC Face-to-face meeting, Pasadena, CA.
    * 7-8 April 2005 -- ALMA Board Face-to-face meeting, Pasadena, CA.
    * 4 May 2005 -- WVR PDR, Gothenburg, Sweden
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *******************************
ALMA Memo # 507 ALMA First LO Reference : Elimination of Large Phase 
   Fluctuations due to lightwave polarization effects 
Authors:  Bill Shillue, S. AlBanna

This memo was mentioned previously but is still available only on almaedm via
password.  Soon one shoule be able to view a pdf version of ALMA Memo #507 at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma507/memo507.pdf
------------------------------------------------------------------------    

*******************************ALSO OF INTEREST*******************************
SMA proposal deadline for next semester (MAY 1 - OCT 31) is MAR 17, 2005
******************************************************************************
Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the
preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail 
(jneighbo at nrao.edu or awootten at nrao.edu).

The calendar will be issued between late Friday and sometime on Monday by e-mail
to all NRAO scientific staff members and anyone else interested. A specific
mailing list, alma-info, has been created for anyone wishing to receive it.  
Past issues are available at 
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html