[mmaimcal] FYI: 1-15 July BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO

Thu Jul 19 14:14:35 EDT 2007

Folks,

Corrections, commendations or criticisms?

Al

                     BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO
                         1 July - 15 July 2007

******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT*************************
The ALMA Board met in Santiago 27-28 June.  The Board welcomed the two 
new members from East Asia: Dr. P. T. P. Ho (Academia Sinica Institute 
of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan) and Dr. H. Kobayashi (Director of 
the VERA project, Japan).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Langley has been promoted to Division Head for the ALMA Back End 
IPT and as the BE IPT Leader.  Congratulations, Chris!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Transitions:  Lars-Ake Nyman assumed fulltime duties as Head of Science 
Operations in the JAO at the beginning of July.  William Garnier began 
his assignment as ALMA Public Relations Officer in the JAO on 2007 July 
2.  Ms. Alejandra Arraya, Senior Administrative Assitant in the JAO, 
will be leaving ALMA at the end of June to move to London.  Gloria 
Norero is the new JAO Senior Administrative Assistant.  Welcome, 
Lars-Ake, William and Gloria, and godspeed Alejandra!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
Photos of activity may be found at:
http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html
Sky:  Venus and Saturn are low in the sky at sunset, ceding dominance of 
the late evening sky to Jupiter.

SCO (Santiago Central Office):  The ALMA Board met in Santiago 27-28
June.  The Board welcomed the two new members from East Asia: Dr. P. T. 
P. Ho (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan) 
and Dr. H. Kobayashi (Director of the VERA project, Japan).  Following 
the recommendation of the ALMA Budget Committee and the ALMA
Director, the ALMA Board approved the contract for Band 9 (.45 mm) 
receivers with NOVA, the contract to operate the European Front End 
Integration center at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories and the contract 
for Water Vapor Radiometers.  The Board welcomed the initiative of the 
University of Chile to construct a prototype frontend for ALMA Band 1 
but noted that this welcome development does not constitute a selection 
of a particular design.  The Board approved the Technical Evaluation 
Committee’s decision to recommend that the ESO Director General award a 
design contract for the new Santiago Central Offices to Iglesias Pratt, 
a major Chilean architectural firm associated with the OSF design, 
including the option for underground parking, and a relocation of the 
guard house. The ASAC Chair Lee Mundy presented its report to the Board.

AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude):  Completion of design and 
engineering of the AOS antenna station layout, interconnecting road 
system and power and FO distribution, by M3 Engineering. Road layout, 
antenna pad,  power and FO distribution drawings have been distributed 
for ALMA review. Sky transparency has been excellent over the past 
week--nearly always below 1mm PW with several nights remaining below 
0.5mm PWV.

OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude):  There are 488 people 
working at the ALMA site.  Work has begun on the AEM antenna lay down 
facilities.  Three mounts for the NAOJ 12m antennas are expected at the 
OSF shortly; other components of these antennas have been delivered. 
ALMA Camp extension buildings have been built, furnished and granted 
provisional acceptance.  Vertex and ALMA cabling is ongoing in the first 
antenna.  Major components of the second antenna are expected to leave 
northern hemisphere ports in early August.

ATF:  The ATF support team headed by Jeff Kern has started its support 
work at the ATF. It has been approved to prolong ATF operation until 
June 2008.  The AEC antenna has been put back in operation after having 
two sectors of the azimuth motors substituted. Emerson focussed the 
antenna.  The first steps towards dynamic interferometry were taken with 
the attempt to use control software to set the delay of the digitizer 
clock.  Preproduction backends will be installed on the Vx antenna 
during the upcoming period.

Germany:  The first antenna transporter successfully rolled out of its 
hangar and commissioning by its manufacturer began.  A CASA tutorial for 
CASA testers organized by the ESO ARC was held at ESO for three days. 
Reception was reportedly favorable.

NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Provisional Acceptance In-House (PAI) for 
the third and sixth B7 cartridge was held in Grenoble on July 3. A PAI 
review meeting for Band 9 cold cartridges SN 4, 6 and 8 was held at SRON 
on 27-June-2007. Two cold cartridges may be shipped to the NA FEIC. 
Assembly of FE #2 is in progress and is expected to finish by July 13. 
Beam pattern acceptance data was acquired for Bands 6 and 7 at the Front 
End Integration Center (FEIC).
The 2-antenna correlator is being shipped to the ATF.  Testing and 
integration of the 2 antenna correlator at ATF is foreseen for the first 
week of August.

NAASC: NAASC personnel participated in CASA tests.
A calendar of NAASC events may be found at:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php
A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the
next fortnight at the NAASC; see the listings below.
Registration for the workshop 'Transformational Science with ALMA:
Through Disks to Stars and Planets' to be held 22-24 June 2007
is under way:  See http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/ for schedule.
***************************************************************************
DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see
https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar
  Sun   1 Jul -
  Mon   2 Jul -
3:30PM: PSI/ATF telecon
  Tue   3 Jul -
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
  Wed   4 Jul - Holiday US
  Thu   5 Jul -
  Fri   6 Jul -
  Sat   7 Jul -
  Sun   8 Jul -
  Mon   9 Jul -
  Tue  10 Jul -
10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon
  Wed  11 Jul -
  Thu  12 Jul -
  10:00 am: Calibration group telecon
  Fri  13 Jul -
  Sat  14 Jul -
8:04 am - New Moon
  Sun  15 Jul -
  Mon  16 Jul -
****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS *************************
  Jun 27-28                       ALMA Board Meeting     Santiago
  Jul 26                          ALMA Board Telecon
  Aug 1                           ASAC telecon
  Sep 3                           ALMA/Eu Community Day  ESO
  Sep 12-13                       B6 CDR                 Cville
******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS *************************
*****************************ALSO OF INTEREST***************************
Proposals for observations using CARMA during the period 1 January to 30
June 2008 are due on 13 September 2007. Detailed information, including 
capabilities to be offered this semester, sensitivities, and proposal 
submission instructions, may be found at the CARMA website, 
http://www.mmarray.org.
***************************************************************************
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