[mmaimcal] FYI: 27 Feb BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
Alwyn Wootten
awootten at nrao.edu
Wed Mar 1 16:06:22 EST 2006
Folks:
Comments, criticisms, corrections? Thx, Al
BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
27 Feb 2006 - 13 March 2006
******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT****************************
Recent images of ALMA construction in Chile (mislabelled all at the AOS;
the ones in which dirt is abundant are at the OSF) may be viewed at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
OSF: OSF Currently there are approximately 154 persons working at the
site of which approximately 129 use the ALMA and Contractor’s lodging
facilities. ESO FC approval session to approve the contract for the
Technical Facilities at the OSF is on 02-Mar-2006. The VERTEX antenna
area earthwork is substantially completed. OSF antenna foundations
excavation is under way. Contracting for catering and cleaning
services is under way. NSF approval has been obtained.
The power station feasibility study update and subsequent design
and engineering are underway. Fiber optic link OSF-AOS design budget
proposals have been received.
AOS: Rough Work for the establishment of the modified formation level
of the permanent access road from km 28 to the AOS is in progress at km 42.
AOS building foundations and shell construction is under way, finishing
date is 20-Mar- 2006.
Santiago: A couple of engineers will be hired on a casual basis
(6mo) to help with detailing work in AIV while the main hiring plan
comes into force. A JAO IT vacancy notice has been published.
ACA System Preliminary Design Review report is released. See edm.alma.cl.
The ASAC have written their report for delivery to the ALMA Board
at their Kyoto meeting in March. JAO Project Scientist pro tem Tom
Wilson is on station at the JAO. The SOC of the Madrid ALMA meeting
has arrived at a final schedule, speakers invited, many acceptances.
Bruno Ocampo has joined the local team--congratulations Cesar!
TUC: Holography planning has progressed well through a series of meetings
chaired by Emerson.
AOC: Prototype System Integration (PSI) reports that the DTS (Digital
Transmission System) is working perfectly; as a result, PSI is now
testing synchronization between digitizer/demux and formatter. PSI
reports that the two LLCs (Line Length Correctors) in the antenna
racks both lock up and are now interchangeable.
All parts of the LO sub-system are being readied for
end-to-end phase drift tests at the end of February.
ATF: Twelve production antenna racks arrived at the VLA from the vendor.
Outfitting of the racks will take place in the Melco trailer at
the ATF site, which NAOJ donated. The Vx optical pointing functional team
had the main computing IPT attention in the last two weeks.
NTC: Band6 (1.3mm) cartridge #1 in final configuration for testing.
The preliminary end-to-end test of a Warm Cartridge Amplifier (WCA)
connected through 15 km of fiber to a laser synthesizer in the BackEnd
lab in Charlottesville has shown phase noise of 50 fsec rms, compared
to the specification of 53 fsec.
The first Data Transmission System Receiver card (DRX) was received
and successfully tested in Correlator Quadrant #1.
Mauna Kea: Water Vapour Radiometer (WVR): First measurements are being
made in which the prototype WVR data is compared to SMA interferometer
data.
NAASC: A. Markwick-Kemper visiting U. Manchester re: ALMA archive lists
of spectral lines, calibrators.
***************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
Mon 27 Feb
Tue 28 Feb
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 1 Mar
1:00 pm: NAASC telecon
3:30 pm: Astrochemistry Group Meeting, U. Va.
All day: Subaru-ALMA Science working group meeting NAOJ-Subaru videolink.
Thu 2 Mar
9:30 am: Management IPT telecon
All day: ESO Finance Committee
All day: Subaru-ALMA Science working group meeting NAOJ-Subaru videolink.
Fri 3 Mar
6:00 am: Vertex Antenna Safety F2F Meeting, Santiago JAO
11:00 am: J. Gibson visit, NAASC-Abs amplitude calibration at CARMA
Sat 4 Mar
Sun 5 Mar
Mon 6 Mar
Crystal Brogan arrives in Charlottesville. Welcome, Crystal!
Tue 7 Mar
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
Wed 8 Mar
4:00 PM: ASAC Telecon
Thu 9 Mar
Fri 10 Mar T. Wilson departs JAO/Santiago.
Sat 11 Mar
Sun 12 Mar
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
Mar 8 2100UT ASAC Telecon
March 21-22 all day AMAC Meeting Kyoto, Japan
March 23-24 all day ALMA Board Meeting Kyoto, Japan
June 13-14 all day ALMA Board Meeting OSF
November 9-10 all day ALMA Board Meeting Madrid TBD
Nov 13-16 all day Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics Madrid
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ****************************
ALMA presentations at the January Zmachine meeting are available on line
through links at www.zmachine.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
******************************ALSO OF INTEREST*****************************
SMA Call for Proposals
The Submillimeter Array (SMA), the radio interferometer on Mauna Kea built
by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica
Institute
of Astronomy and Astrophysics, makes available a fraction of the observing
time to principal investigators from the astronomical community (worldwide).
The proposal deadline is 9 March 2006 for the observing semester
1 May 2006 through 31 October 2006. More information, technical details,
and instructions and tools for proposal preparation and submission can be
found at http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu/, the SMA Observer Center web site.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anne Dutrey informs us of a CNRS post-doctoral position at the Observatory of
Bordeaux. The position is opened for two years and will start on september
2006 at the Observatory of Bordeaux. The application deadline is June 2006.
The position is dedicated to the modelling of chemistry in proto-planetary
disks in order to interpret observational data obtained with the IRAM array.
Interested people can read the dedicated CNRS web page
http://www.k-projects.com/cnrs_postdocs/public/departement_details.php?IdDpt=9&Dep=SDU&NumOffre=2&Langue=en
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IRAM Call for Proposals
The next deadline for submission of observing proposals on IRAM telescopes,
both the interferometer and the 30m, is
09 March 2006, 17:00 CET (UT + 1 hour)
The scheduling period extends from 15 May 2005 to 15 November 2005,
covering roughly the summer period at our observatories.
Proposals should be submitted through the web-based submission facility.
Instructions are found on the web page at URL:
http://www.iram.fr/GENERAL/submission/submission.html
The submission facility will be opened about three weeks before the
proposal deadline. Proposal form pages and the 30m time estimator
are available now.
See:
http://www.iram.fr/GENERAL/calls/calls_s06/calls_s06.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
More information about the mmaimcal
mailing list