[mmaimcal] FYI: Draft of Biweekly Calendar, 10 Oct
Alwyn Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Tue Oct 11 06:29:36 EDT 2005
Folks,
Comments, criticisms etc?
Clear skies,
Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Oct 10, 2005 - Oct 24, 2005
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*****************************
Construction on the Technical Building (which contains all common equipment,
such as the correlator) at the 16,000 ' elevation Array Operations Site
began with groundbreaking last week. This construction phase, on the
foundations and shell, should finish by Spring 2006. This building is a
North American deliverable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Some 74 panel members, ALMA Personnel and assorted interested parties will
meet for the Cost Review of the rebaselined ALMA budget in
Garmisch-Partenkirchen 13-16 October.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Senate and the House have voted on the FY2006 Appropriations Bills which
cover NSF. Both committees recommended $49,240,000 for the Atacama Large
Millimeter Array. A conference committee must meet to resolve differences
before sending the bill to the President for his signature or veto.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ESO Council on 29-30 September, "reaffirming the strategic importance of
ALMA, and its determination to ensure the scientific success of ALMA for
European astronomy and its commitment to ALMA in collaboration with its
partners in North America and Japan, ...decides that the estimated increase
...in the cost to completion of the ESO share of the bilateral ALMA project
is affordable and compatible with ESO's strategic priorities, ... requests
the Finance Committee to proceed to decide on the proposal to aware a
contract for the production of the ESO ALMA antennas."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ESO Finance Committee on Oct 5 approved award of the EU production antenna
contract to the
AEM - ALCATEL ALENIA SPACE / E.I.E. Industrial Engineering / MT AEROSPACE
consortium.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fabio Biancat Marchet has been nominated to become the IPT Deputy Leader
for the Back End project in ALMA. Fabio has accepted this nomination, and
his appointment is immediately effective. As planned, Fabio takes over
from Alain Baudry, who continues to serve as the IPT Deputy Project Leader
for the Correlator. Hans Rykaczewski, European ALMA Project Manager,
thanks Alain, and we join him, for his dedicated and excellent work for
the ALMA Back End project over the pastvolved in many six years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html
See also the JAO ALMA Calendar overview at:
http://www.alma.cl/alma_project
*******************************************************************************
General Happenings
Santiago: The JAO top-level personnel will be in Germany for the Cost Review
this week.
OSF: ALMA Camp completed with 30 beds. Contractors camp 120/200 beds will
be done November, nearly complete now; dining facilities opened last week.
OSF mass excavation and fill completed.
AOS: 30 of 43km of road done (access with normal vehicles); the final 13km
is in the finishing process, access may be difficult for large vehicles.
The AOS Technical Building was begun 3 Oct 2005;
ATF: During 17-Oct to 28-Oct, Vertex will be working on metrology
development on the Vertex antenna in preparation for the manufacture
of the production antenna.
*******************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Mon 10 October Columbus Day Holiday, US and Chile
All Day: Preview of Cost Review Sessions, Garching
Tue 11 Oct
All Day: Preview of Cost Review Sessions, Garching
Wed 12
Morning: Preview of Cost Review Sessions, Garching
11:00 am: SSR Telecon
2:00 pm (Munich time): Travel to Cost Review Sessions, Garmisch
Thu 13
All Day: Cost Review Sessions, Garmisch
Fri 14
All Day: Cost Review Sessions, Garmisch
Sat Oct 15
All Day: Cost Review Sessions, Garmisch
Sun Oct 16
All Day: Cost Review Sessions, Garmisch
Mon Oct 17
Tue Oct 18
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested
parties) (434)296-7082
Wed Oct 19
Thu Oct 20
Fri Oct 21
Sat Oct 22
Sun Oct 23
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
ALMA Calendar--https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
* Oct 13-16 -- ALMA Cost Review, Garmisch, Bavaria
* Oct 17-18 -- ESO Science and Technical Comittee meets
* Oct 26-27 -- AUI Board, Santiago
* Nov 1-2 -- ALMA Board, Santiago
* Nov 8-9 -- ESO Finance Committee
* Nov 8-9 -- ALMA-J Antenna SRR, Osaka
* Nov 10-11 -- ACA System Review, Tokyo
* Nov 21-22 -- SSR Meeting, Charlottesville
* Nov 30-Dec 1 -- National Science Board meets
* Dec 7-8 -- ESO Council Regular Meeting
* Jan 4-7 -- URSI/NA, Boulder
* Jan 12-14 -- ALMA Zmachines workshop
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *****************************
ALMA Memo # 532: The ALMA 3-bit 4 Gsample/s, 2-4 GHz Input Bandwidth, Flash
Analog-to-Digital Converter
Author: Alain Baudry
A high speed low power analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using the 0.255m
BiCMOS SiGe technology from ST Microelectronics has been developed to meet
the specifications of the ALMA project. The main features of this ADC are:
3-bit resolution (8 quantization levels) in Gray code, an input bandwidth
from 2 to 4 GHz, 4 GHz sampling rate (and possible operation up to 5 GHz),
LVDS standard I/Os and low power dissipation (< 1.4 W). We present in this
paper some details of our ADC design and performance results obtained with
the ALMA digitizer assembly including one ADC followed by three high speed
1:16 deserializers. ALMA production acceptance tests are briefly described.
A pdf copy of this memo may be obtained at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma532/memo532.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALMA Memo # 538: Array Configuration Design of the Atacama Compact Array
by: Koh-Ichiro Morita (NAOJ) and Mark Holdaway (NRAO)
In this memo, we present a design concept of the array configuration of
the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) and strawperson plan of the configuration
design. Basic parameters of the array configuration of ACA were discussed
from the analysis of the sensitivity in {\it uv} plane of mosaicing
observations with the ACA and the ALMA. For detailed design, it was
shown that the compact spiral concept is appropriate to meet major
requirements for the ACA, which are to obtain higher {\it uv} response
at the short {\it uv} spacings and better sidelobe performance. To satisfy
the sky coverage requirement, the north - south elongation is needed. We
propose that the ACA system consists of two configurations, one (Inner Array)
is a compact spiral array with small north - south axis ratio (x 1.1) and
the other (NS Array) is a dedicated configuration with large north - south
axis ratio (x 1.7). In current actual plan, inner 6 pads are shared by
both configurations.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #538 at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma538/memo538.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALMA Memo # 540: High carrier suppression double sideband modulation with
integrated LiNbO3 optical modulators for photonic local oscillators
by: T. Koh-Ichiro Morita (NAOJ), Mark Holdaway (NRAO)
2005-09-29
We proposed high carrier suppression double sideband modulation using a
Mach-Zehnder (MZ) optical modulator with active trimming technique. The
modulator has a pair of trimmers in the arms of the MZ structure. The
trimmers can compensate amplitude imbalance in the MZ structure due to
fabrication error, where the imbalance generates residual carrier in
double sideband suppressed carrier (DSB-SC) modulation. We demonstrated
high carrier suppression ratio of 50dB in DSB-SC modulation at 10.5GHz,
by using an integrated MZ LiNbO3 modulator, where each arm has an
intensity trimmer consisting of a sub MZ interferometer. In addition,
we also proposed a novel scheme for the fourth order harmonic generation
with two MZ modulators. A photonic local signal of 42GHz was generated
from a 10.5GHz modulating signal. The upper limit of modulating frequency
in the state-of-the-art is about 50GHz, so that we can easily generate
200GHz photonic local signals by using this technique.
View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #540 at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma540/memo540.pdf
******************************ALSO OF INTEREST******************************
Bill Shillue writes:
"The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John L. Hall of JILA and NIST
this week. He is in a small way linked to the ALMA project, ....
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/2005_Nobel_Prize_Hall.htm
"He contributed to the invention of the laser, the precise definition of
the second, unprecedented stabilization of lasers, and numerous innovations
in optoelectronic laboratory techniques. His understanding and use of
modern high speed electronics has been invaluable for the development
of the world's most accurate and stable laser oscillators. One of his
techniques is called the Pound-Drever-Hall method, which is now used
universally for laser frequency stabilization. An interesting footnote
is that "Pound" is R.V. Pound, an honorary member of the AUI Board of
Trustees, who was the originator of the technique but applied it to
microwave oscillators..."
"Dr. Hall's work in the precise stabilization of clocks and measurement
of time led to further work in transferring the stable clocks from one
laboratory to another (over optical fiber). This is exactly what we
are trying to do in the ALMA LO reference system, except that we are
transferring phase from a central building to the antenna. Our effort
is unique in transferring the frequency and phase of the lightwaves
across a moving reference frame. We have incorporated several of the
techniques developed by Hall and his group at JILA and NIST in our work.
Two of these techniques originated by Hall are implemented in the ALMA
line length corrector. The first is the use of electronic frequency
division to reduce the phase noise of the recovered lightwave in a
optical phase measurement system. The second is the use of an opticl
fringe counter using high-speed electronic counters [Journal of Quantum
Electronics, April 1987]. "
------------------TENURE TRACK ASTRONOMER POSITIONS------------------------
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) invites outstanding
applicants for tenure track astronomer positions. In the next few years,
the NRAO expects to make one or two appointments per year. Appointments
are not restricted to radio astronomers. See
http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml#tenure
---------------------------ALMA Postdocs-----------------------------------
2006 Postdoc Position at the North American ALMA Science Center/ALMA
Construction
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory expects to invite applications
for a NRAO Postdoctoral appointment at the North American ALMA Science
Center in Charlottesville, Va. These positions provide 50% time for
independent research, with the remaining 50% assigned to project
and operational duties at the sites.
The position is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation
through the ALMA Construction Project.
---------------------------------------------
2006 ALMA Postdoc Positions at ESO
For the first time this year, four dedicated ALMA/ESO fellowships will
be offered (two in Garching and two in Santiago) in addition to the several
regular fellowships offered at both places. Please see:
http://eso.org/gen-fac/adm/pers/vacant/fellows2005-6.html
******************************************************************************
Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the
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(jneighbo at nrao.edu or awootten at nrao.edu).
The calendar will be issued between late Friday and sometime on Monday by
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