VEGAS Team Meeting

Attendees: Richard, Paul, Amanda, Anish, Marty

Agenda:

1. progress on ADC calibration
2. resolution of blanking time issues
3. Progress on “current issues”
4. use of non-maintenance time for VEGAS testing

Meeting notes:

1. progress on ADC calibration
   • John, Randy, & Jason spent some time running Hong's python script, which automatically performs the ADC calibration. The SRBS roach2 was used for these tests. The roach2 was first power-cycled to reset the ADC registers to default values. The calibration process appeared to reduce the spurs from ~-35dBm to ~-70dBm!
   • Some time was spent perusing the code to figure out where & how the values are sent to the roach2. This info will be passed to Ray for future implementation in the M&C software.
   • Jason emailed a few requests to Hong for features to add to the scripts, such as adding titles to the plots, scaling the x-axes in frequency, and an option to auto-save the plots. She has already made these changes but they haven't been tested by NRAO folks. That should happen this week.
   • It would probably be worthwhile to do this procedure on all of the vegas roach2's sometime soon.
2. resolution of blanking time issues
   • Blanking time discussions. I've been working on a page trying to summarize the discussions thus far, and lay out what needs to be updated.
3. Progress on “current issues” - See CICADAGreenBankSpectrometerCurrentIssues
4. use of non-maintenance time for VEGAS testing
   • We need more maintenance time than is available on maintenance days.
     • There seem to be few trained observers on VEGAS so there should be a way
   • Discuss during Quarterly Planning meeting

Other

1. Paul to take request back to SDD team to better document releases now that multiple folks are releasing software
2. Please make sure to properly code your timesheets for the current time period and going forward.

- Software engineers should be using a GBT ops software CM&E account

Account 893252

- Electronic engineers should be using a GBT ops electronics CM&E account

Account 432510

- Commissioning activities should be getting charged to hardware support and testing (432510)

Account 432510

- scientists assisting with shared-risk commissioning should be charging an observer support account.

432540 for the most part. Accounts 142023 (GB-based staff) and 142013 (CV-based staff) for when you are helping with overarching observing support (not problem solving, VEGAS specific)

-- MartyBloss - 2014-03-24