[mmaimcal] 9 May BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Mon May 9 14:32:42 EDT 2005
Comments or rude noises appreciated!
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
May 9, 2005 -- May 23 2005
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*********************************
An ALMA-related workshop on the new suite of ultrawide-bandwidth
(sub)millimeter spectrometers now under development for several
telescopes is being planned. The main goals of such a workshop (tentatively
titled: "From Z to A: Z-Machines to ALMA") would be to familiarize the community
with these instruments' capabilities, highlight the most important scientific
questions about dusty high-redshift galaxies that they will be able to
address in the near term, and discuss how observing programs can be
designed to optimize synergy with ALMA and the EVLA on longer timescales.
This would be a small workshop (~60 participants) held in Charlottesville
following the Jan 2006 Washington DC meeting of the AAS. The ANASAC is
spearheading this effort; volunteers for the Scientific Organizing Committee
are being identified.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The next JAO/IPT meeting will be held in Chile at the OSF, San Pedro de
Atacama, Sep 26-30.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The WVR Review went well in Onsala, Robert Laing reports. Both designs
performed well; the Dicke-switched design met all specifications with a simple
design and appears favored (but no report has yet been issued).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The ESO Finance Council meets on 11 May to delineate their position on the
ALMA antennas. NSF is expected to do likewise during this period.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
An unusual eruption registered before dawn 5 May at Láscar volcano,
located about 430 kilometers to the west of Antofagasta and a little
further than the town of San Pedro de Atacama from the ALMA site, to its
south. Lascar expelled ashes and columns of smoke by a period of 30
minutes between the localities of Camar and Talabre. The eruption was
detected at 03,03 hours. No effect was reported at the ALMA site.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Considerable effort is being expended toward document production for the NSF
Senior Review.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The face-to-face meeting of the ALMA North American Science Advisory Committee,
ANASAC, will be held 12 June in Cambridge, Mass.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
See also the ALMA Calendar overview at:
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
*******************************************************************************
General Happenings
Santiago: A candidate was identified for Safety Manager position. On the subject
of safety...
OSF: The Lascar volcano produced a minor eruption (see above). Job description
for camp manager position created to be filled August 2005. 26 persons working
at the site. Radford moved submillimeter tipper to CBI site.
Tucson: Tests of revised LO Photonics Line Length Corrector with a prototype
cable wrap show that the phase correction is no longer susceptible to low
level acoustic vibrations. Emerson is sorting through Tucson library for
ALMA-useful volumes.
AOC: Marson appointed as Computing IPT coordinator of ATF activities. The first
in-kind NAOJ staff member, Takahiro Hayakawa, has started work in Socorro.
The move of the prototype LO sub-system from the NRAO Tucson lab to Socorro
will begin June 20. Combined lab integration will begin the next week.
ATF: System testing will resume week of May 9.
NTC: Integrated testing of the First Band6 (1.3mm) cartridge in the first
ALMA cryostat continues. Testing of SIS wafer #8 has begun, and the first
chip tested is good. The preamp test system entered into regular production
use. Front End Preliminary Design Review (PDR) set 6-7 July in Garching.
New hire (from Socorro into the Front End Local Oscillator group)
Jim Muehlberg began design of the digital Phase Lock Loop (PLL) circuit.
All slots in all bins of the first quadrant have now had an initial functional
verification. The Station Card firmware now provides full support for the
Tunable Filter Bank (TFB) Card, and we are ready to test TFB cards.
An ALMA Digitizer has been connected to drive one TFB card. The first basic
spectral analysis seems correct (line detected and moved around; no
conspicuous spurious features throughout the band).
Victoria: Band 3 cartridge: For cartridge #1, a scan of the noise every
1 GHz was obtained for each LO point, power and Mixer bias. The SSB noise
for the four channels is between 40K and 50K.
NAASC: Planning for face-to-face ANASAC meeting, for meeting on Z-machines
for extragalactic CO and for the NSF Senior Review continues.
*******************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see also
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Mon 9 May
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
Tue 10
10:00 AM-11:00 AM: NA Project Office Staff Meeting
4:00 PM-5:00PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested
parties) (434)296-7082
Agenda: https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/10May05A
Archive: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/
Wed 11
11:00AM-12:00PM
Agenda: http://almasw.hq.eso.org/almasw/bin/view/SSR/2005-05-11
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/CalAgendaMinutes20050512
Thu 12
9:30 AM-11:00 AM: Management IPT Teleconference
11:00AM-12:00AM: ALMA Calibration Group Telecon
Agenda:https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/CalAgendaMinutes20050512
Fri 13
10:00 AM-11:00 AM: Front End handling discussion
Sat 14
Sun 15
Mon 16
9:30 AM-10:30 AM: NA Project Office Staff Meeting
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
Tue 17
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: Science IPT Teleconference
Agenda: https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/17May05Agenda
Wed 18
Thu 19
9:30 AM-11:00 AM: Management IPT Teleconference
Fri 20
Sat 21
Sun 22
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ******************************
ALMA Calendar--see also https://wiki.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/NAASC
* May 10-11 -- ESO Finance Committee meeting
* May 17 -- 14:30UT Science IPT Telecon
* May 26 -- 1500UT ALMA Board telecon
* May 29-Jun 2 -- AAS Minneapolis
* May 30-31 ACA Correlator PDR, Tokyo
* June 5-6 -- ESO Council
* June 12 -- 1-5pm ANASAC Face-to-Face CfA, Cambridge
* JUN 13 - 16 Workshop on submillimeter wavelength astronomy in
Cambridge. Registration deadline is APR 30. For more
information, log onto the event website:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/smast05.
* June 21-22 -- ALMA Board Meeting, The Hague, Netherlands
* June 21-24 Bands 4 & 8 PDRs, Tokyo
* 6-7 Jul - Front End IPT delta PDR, Garching
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *******************************
*******************************ALSO OF INTEREST*******************************
'Status of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array', by T. Wilson, T. Beasley and
A. Wootten, a contribution presented at "The Cool Universe: Observing Cosmic
Dawn" held at Valparaiso, Chile last October to be published in the ASP
conference proceedings volume may be read at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/cooluniverse.pdf
******************************************************************************
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
More information about the mmaimcal
mailing list