[mmaimcal] FYI: 13 Mar BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO

Mon Mar 13 17:16:49 EST 2006

Folks, comments, condemnations, kudos?

Al

                     BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
                          13 March 2006 - 27 March 2006 

******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT****************************
On 2 March, at the US House Committee on Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, 
and Related Agencies there was a hearing on the NSF budget, at which there
was testimony from Arden Bement, Director and Dr. Warren Washington, 
Chairman, National Science Board.  
Official release (Nothing there about ALMA though it was reportedly 
discussed.)
http://www.nsf.gov/about/congress/109/highlights/cu06_0303.jsp
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The 2005 Distinguished Performance Awards have been announced.  
Congratulations to Bill Brundage, who has been instrumental to the ALMA
Back End group for some years.  Bill designed and built the IF
downconverter employed at the AOC for ALMA tests.  As Back End (BE) 
systems engineer, he has been devloping and tracking the requirements for 
the ALMA BE.  Rich Lacasse, recently filling Ray Escoffier's place on the
ALMA Correlator, also garnered an aware--Congratulations, Rich!
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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
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General Happenings
OSF: OSF construction bid was not approved by the ESO Finance Council;
a revised submission will be considered at their 9-10 May meeting.
Power station feasibility study under consideration.  154 persons
are working on the site; 129 are housed in the local facilities.
Road construction rough work is in progress at km 42.

AOS: Shell finish scheduled during this fortnight.
Architectural, mechanical, electrical finishes to technical building
contract awaits approval by ALMA Board and NSF.  Work is expected to
begin in April.  

Santiago:  The local hiring plan is under development by AUI.
Preparations for the AMAC and ALMA Board meetings are under way.  

TUC: System Requirements Review follow up meeting planning settled 
on a time and venue of 26 and 27 April in Garching.

AOC: Four digitizers running all the way through to the correlator.
Some issues being tracked down.  University of Kent reports a favorable 
polarization performance of the antenna fiber optic cable wrap; two 
additional wraps have been delivered to PSI for evaluation.
Offline (AIPS++) test #4 started. This is the first test using the new 
Python framework. Functionally it is based on commissioning (1-baseline 
interferometry) needs. Lin will join the Socorro based Computing IPT as 
an NAOJ supplied developer (Pipeline/Scheduling).
Two Line length Correctors (LLC) and their connecting fixture were 
inserted in the optical path of the LO sub-system. Characterization of 
the sub-system phase drift has begun.

ATF: Vertex, AEC antennas are in use by Computing IPT for software porting.
Optical pointing tests will follow.

NTC: Intensive testing of the Tunable Filter Bank (TFB) II card is 
scheduled for the week of March 13, with participation from Europe 
and Ray Escoffier.
Construction of correlator quadrant #2 continued. About 70% of the 
Monitor and Control (M&C) cabling has been installed.

NAASC:  Crystal Brogan has arrived and begun her work.
Tony Rodriguez will begin work 20 March as NA Antenna IPT 
Quality Assurance Production Engineer.
A calibration telecon was held specific emphasis was placed on cross 
calibration of the 12m array and elements of the ACA.
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DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
 Mon  13 Mar
 Tue  14 Mar
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
 Wed  15 Mar
9:30 AM: ScienceIPT teleconference 
3:30 pm:  Astrochemistry Group Meeting, U. Va.
 Thu  16 Mar
 Fri  17 Mar St. Patrick's Day
 Sat  18 Mar
 Sun  19 Mar
 Mon  20 Mar
All Day:  ALMA Bilateral partners retreat, Kyoto
 Tue  21 Mar Spring!
All Day:  ALMA Management Advisory Committee meeting, Kyoto
 Wed  22 Mar
All Day:  ALMA Management Advisory Committee meeting, joined by Board pm
 Thu  23 Mar
All Day:  ALMA Board Meeting, Kyoto
 Fri  24 Mar 
All Day:  ALMA Board Meeting, Kyoto
 Sat  25 Mar
 Sun  26 Mar 
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************
 March 21-22	 all day 	 AMAC Meeting 	        Kyoto, Japan
 March 23-24	 all day 	 ALMA Board Meeting 	Kyoto, Japan
 April 5         1500 UT         ASAC Telecon
 April 5         1:30 EST        NAASC Telecon
 April 28        1900 UT         ANASAC Telecon
 June 13-14    	 all day 	 ALMA Board Meeting 	OSF
 Sept 22-23      evening         Dave Matthews Band     CV JPJ Arena opening
 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 ****************************
******************************ALSO OF INTEREST*****************************
                2nd pan-ALMA Conference : 2nd Announcement

Dear Colleague,

The 2nd pan-ALMA conference on "Science with ALMA: a new era for  
Astrophysics" will be held 13-16 November 2006 in Madrid, Spain. The 
venue will be the campus of the CSIC (Consejo Superior de 
Investigaciones Cientificas), in the centre of town. 

Information on the 2nd pan-ALMA meeting is available via

       http://www.oan.es/alma2006/   (final slash is mandatory)
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ALMA presentations at the January Zmachine meeting are available on line 
through links at www.zmachines.net
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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
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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