[mmaimcal] Sept 12 BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Al Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Fri Sep 16 16:12:53 EDT 2005
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Sept 12, 2005 - Sept 25, 2005
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*********************************
We were greatly saddened to learn of the death of Roberto Rivera in an
automobile accident near San Pedro on September 1. Roberto
came to ALMA in 2001 and had worked with the site characterization team,
along with many colleagues investigating the Chajnantor site,
impressing many of us and our colleagues with his drive, his talent and
dedication and his conviviality. We will all miss him dearly and send
our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.
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The ALMA budget was rebaselined and materials sent to the ALMA Board by
the JAO on schedule on 2005 September 8. The ALMA Board and its committees
now enter an intense period of review of the materials. The rebaselined
budget will be the subject of a cost review 13-16 October to be held
in Garmisch, Germany before a panel of twenty esternal reviewers chaired
by Steve Beckwith and Thijs de Graauw.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The ESO Committee of Council reacted positively to the rebaselined ALMA
budget, calling for an extraordinary meeting of the full Council
29-30 September to consider it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For a variety of personal and professional reasons, David Silva has decided
to leave ESO and join the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project in Pasadena.
Dave did an exemplary job with his work on the ALMA Operations Plan.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Over one hundred participants celebrated the contributions Jack Welch
has made to radio astronomy at a meeting: REVEALING THE MOLECULAR
UNIVERSE -- ONE TELESCOPE IS NEVER ENOUGH held 9-10 Sept 2005, Berkeley,
Ca. Jack has made many contributions to ALMA also. and, we expect, has
many more to make with more time to ponder them.
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At the meeting, Paul Ho announced that ASIAA has entered the ALMA
project through the signing of an agreement with ALMA-Japan. Welcome
to Taiwan, the sixteenth nation represented in ALMA.
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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: Wootten arrives for his turno duty as JAO Project Scientist the
last week of September. The ASAC will meet 1-2 October in Santiago.
OSF: OSF Bid analysis is under way. Contracting of the Work is scheduled
to be in December 2005. Rough Work on final road is in progress at km 37.
Currently there are approximately 82 persons working at the site
AOS: Construction on foundation and shell imminent. Completion of drawings for
finish work progressing. Bidding package assembled at end of September.
Security services began 2005-Sep-1.
ATF: Rewire of Alcatel ATF antenna racks delayed.
AOC: Delivery of updated power supplies, IFPs, and LO Reference and Timing
modules for P-SI (Prototype-System Integration) scheduled for September.
Delivery of LLC modules also scheduled for September. Delivery of prototype
cable wraps scheduled for October.
IF Testing continued; broadband noise, 4-12 GHz, generated in the pseudo-
FrontEnd was used to derive digitizer statistics in the formatter card;
two digitizers will be shipped to UoB for upgrade Sept 7. 3.
Holography system being shipped back to Charlottesville for refurbishment.
NTC: Testing of cryostat #3 has been completed at RAL (UK).
Band 3 (3mm) cartridge (@HIA): The prototype cartridge is awaiting one
more LNA before further RF testing. Cartridge #2 is assembled and optical
alignment is being measured.
Band 6 (1mm) cartridge: Ongoing tests of cartridge #2 show that we are meeting
the gain stability specification at one LO setting. Cartridge #3 assembly
is complete and it awaits testing.
Band 7 (.8 mm) cartridge (@IRAM): Testing of cartridge #1 continued. LO
noise tests are ongoing.
Band 9 (.65 mm) cartridge (@SRON): Various parts have been contracted out
for the pre-production run.
Water Vapour Radiometer (WVR): Interface details for mounting the prototype
WVRs on the SMA are being sorted out.
Testing of the comprehensive test software for the Tunable Filter Bankd (TFB)
card installed in the correlator continued. Initial spectra produced from
digital test signal generators look reasonable and are being evaluated.
Except for TFB cards, the hardware installed in the first quadrant is
98.5% complete.
Green Bank: NRAO Green Bank have agreed to build the DC Bias modules, and
a kick-off meeting has been scheduled.
NAASC: The Computing IPT subsystem leaders and Science Software Requirements
team will be meeting in CV 16-21 Nov.
With J. Mangum as Chair, the amplitude calibration review was held in Grenoble,
with the result that a dual-temperature load is recommended, and detailed
design work will begin shortly.
Antenna Meetings in Kilgore and Mexia, Texas.
*******************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Mon Sep 12
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: ASAC telecon
Tue Sep 13
10:30 AM-11:30 PM: JAO/IPT telecon
1:00 PM-2:00 PM: ANASAC telecon
2:00 PM-3:00 PM: NA ALMA Board telecaucus
4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested
parties) (434)296-7082
Wed Sep 14
10:00 AM-11:00 AM: Extraordinary ASAC telecon
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: SSR telecon
11:30 AM-12:30 PM: Change Control Board
3:00 PM-4:00 PM: NRAO Algorithms Working Group Meeting - Pipelines
Thu Sep 15
11:00 AM-2:00 PM: ALMA Board telecon
2:30 PM-3:30 PM: NAASC Telecon
Fri Sep 16
Sat Sep 17
Sun Sep 18
Mon Sep 19
Tue Sep 20
10:30 AM-11:30 PM: JAO/IPT telecon
Wed Sep 21
10:30 AM-11:30 PM: ScienceIPT teleconference
Thu Sep 22
Fri Sep 23
Sun Sep 24
Sat Sep 25
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ******************************
ALMA Calendar--https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
* Sep 14 -- ESAC Meeting, Garching
* Sep 15 -- European ALMA Board, Garching
* Sep 16 -- ESO Committee of Council, Brussels
* Sep 29-30 -- ESO Council (Extraordinary Meeting)
* Oct 1-2 -- ASAC Meeting, Santiago
* Oct 5 -- ESO Finance Committee (Extraordinary Meeting)
* Oct 6 -- Rolling Stones come to Scott Stadium, Charlottesville
* Oct 13-16 -- ALMA Cost Review, Munich
* Nov 1-2 -- ALMA Board, Santiago
* Nov 8-9 -- ACA 12m Mfg Readiness Review Osaka
* Nov 8-9 -- ESO Finance Committee
* Nov 10-11 -- ACA System Review, Tokyo
* Nov 20-21 -- SSR meeting, Charlottesville
* Nov 30 - Dec 1 -- U. S. National Science Board meeting
* Dec 7-8 -- ESO Council Regular Meeting
* Jan 4-7 -- URSI/NA, Boulder Several sessions of ALMA interest
http://cires.colorado.edu/ursi/
* Jan 12-14 -- ALMA Zmachines workshop http://zmachines.net
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *******************************
ALMA Memo No. 535 Simulation Series of a Phase Calibration Scheme with Water
Vapor Radiometers for the Atacama Compact Array
by Yoshiharu Asaki (ISAS) Masao Saito (NAOJ), Ryohei Kawabe (NAOJ),
Koh-ichiro Morita (NAOJ), Youichi Tamura (Univ. of Tokyo/NAOJ), and
Baltasar Vila-Vilaro (NAOJ)
Abbreviated Abstract:
We have carried out a series of simulations of a phase calibration scheme
for the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) using water vapor radiometers (WVRs).
In the proposed scheme the WVRs devoted to measurements of tropospheric
water vapor content are attached to the 12-m antennas. The excess path
length (EPL) due to the tropospheric water vapor variations aloft is
fitted to a simple two-dimensional slope using WVR measurements...
Interferometric phase fluctuations for each baseline due to the turbulent
water vapor are obtained from differences of inferred line-of-sight EPL
and subtracted from the interferometric phases for the correction.
>From the simulations we found that, for WVRs with no measurement errors,
the proposed calibration scheme shows an excellent performance for all
tropospheric conditions... When WVR measurement errors are added, although
the RMS phases are still improved in unstable tropospheric conditions
(50-percentile conditions), the proposed calibration scheme may not be
needed in good conditions (25-percentile conditions). We found that,
if the performance of the WVR achieves the expected level (a factor
of about three better than the current ALMA WVR specification),
the proposed scheme is quite promising for the ACA....
A pdf copy of this memo is on edm.alma.cl and will eventually appear at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma535/memo535.pdf
---------------------------------------------
ALMA Memo No. 535: WR-10 Waveguide Vacuum Feedthrough for the ALMA
Band-6 Cartridge.
Authors: G. A. Ediss, N. Horner, F. Johnson, D. Koller, A. R. Kerr (NRAO)
Abstract:
This report describes the WR-10 waveguide vacuum feedthrough used in
the local oscillator train of the ALMA Band 6 receivers. The vacuum window
is a short section of epoxy-filled waveguide. A second identical
window spaced Lambda_g/4 from the first matches the feedthrough over
the desired band (73.7-88.3 GHz). The electrical characteristics and
leak rates of the epoxy-filled windows are compared with those of the
simpler but less satisfactory Mylar window.
A pdf copy of this memo is on edm.alma.cl and will eventually appear at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma536/memo536.pdf
******************************ALSO OF INTEREST*******************************
A second call for APEX science Verification proposals was issued by ESO for
ESO users.
---------------------------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.
---------------------------------------------
2005 Postdoc Position in the ALMA-Japan Project Office, NAOJ
Applications are invited for a Post-doctoral position in radio astronomy at
the ALMA-J Project Office of NAOJ (National Astronomical Observatory of
Japan) in Tokyo, Japan. The fellowship will last for two and half years
(Oct. 1, 2005 to Mar. 31, 2008). The fellowship will be renewed at the
beginning of each Japanese fiscal year after evaluation of candidate
performance.
---------------------------------------------
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
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
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