attendees:

Jonathan Williams Debbie Padgett Darryl Emerson Gordon Stacy John Carpenter Alberto Bolatto Andrew Baker Mark Lacy Dave Wilner Daniela Calzetti Rachel Osten John Hibbard Kelsey Johnson Chris Wilson Al Wootten Mel Wright Mike Mumma

1. ALMA progress (A. Wootten)

Thank Darryl Emerson for his many years of innovation. Retiring soon. Welcome Park and Thornberg to the project. Thank Baker, Shang, Williams rotating out of committee. New spectrum of IRAS 16293. Trying Solar interferometric observations, but didn't work. Sixth block of ES programs staring on Monday, but release of fire extinguishing gas on correlator room. Waiting to replenish it. Using the total power observing and ACA correlator (maybe, it requires subarray mode to be commissioned). 26th antennas (soon 27) at the high site. There is a EU antenna going up before the end of the month (perhaps also a 7m). Last night 19 antennas were available for observing (but not the correlator). 22nd NA antenna being assembled. EPO filming at site.

Operations: complexity of ES proposals was high. Problems with throughput. One NA project sent to the user. Several more at the JAO (3 more). Carol, Kartik, and Ed at Chile. Questionnaire results. 17 apps for student support, 13 supported as recommended by the support committee. One NA project has been sent to the PI. Comments about the size of the first dataset (>400 GB). Radio familiarity of PIs is hard to gauge. Taiwanese proposers were supposed to choose EA or NA, not clear why both are listed in list of highest priority objects. Breakdown of proposers/successful PIs by state would help decide on continuing with community day events.

Cycle 1 lookahead. Mitigation strategies for slow throughput. Extension of cycle 1 by a few months proposed. Partial delivery of data to projects (per science goal). Good completion of cycle 0 projects (band 9 challenging) anticipated if deadline is extended. Feedback from PI on priority? Yes, as part of phase 2 and making of the schedule blocks. Discussion ensues about partial observation of projects, extension of cycle 0, etc. ASAC has endorsed the plan. Decision will be done by the board next week.

2. NAASC early science

Doing phase 2 for third batch of projects (those in extended configuration). Data reduction workshop in early December (>29 participants) with hands on experience using the cluster at NRAO. Not yet plans for a second one. Internal single-dish data workshop held a few days earlier, hosted at NAASC by EA.

Community day events at Maryland, Berkeley upcoming.

AAS plans: town hall highlighting science with instrument capabilities on the 10th Jan, ALMA specific on the 11th, another EVLA+VLBA on the 12th.

Some discussion of bands 4 and 8 in the ACA being dropped for cycle 1. Solar observing also dropped (not tested). Polarization also dropped. Time spent refining the long configurations (1 km) and understanding the total power+ACA folding with the other interferometric data.

ALMA development: FAQ ready. Notice of intent responded by 30. Proposals are due on Feb 12th. ACTION ITEM for ANASAC: list of reviewers (10).

ALMA development steering commit tee set up in Oct 11. A list of items has already been submitted to the board. NA needs to produce a list of developments soon!! The VLBI proposal from NSF has apparently already been approved, as have an EU proposal for putting together a consortium for complete set of band 5 receivers, and a fiber connection to Calama for data transport (hefty proposal, board approved going further with investigating it). Terms of reference for the ADSC? No minutes to the ASAC? Timeline set by need to spend money by a certain time or risk losing it.

NAASC wants to hire a development manager.

Plans for cycle 1 proposals: Discussion ensues about the plans for technical evaluation of cycle 1 proposals. Current plan is to only evaluate technically proposals after science evaluation.

There are plans for enlarging the panels and mixing them up.

3. ASAC activities.

See report attached to agenda.

4. Future telecons

Planned dates for future telecon: please send feedback. Telecon time: there is interest in moving the telecons to 2 or 3 hours later than the traditional time. For January, 4pm will be used. Please comment.

-- AlWootten - 2012-01-20
Topic revision: r1 - 2012-01-20, AlWootten
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