Meeting Information

• 1600 UT (1000 MDT)
• AOC 317; IP: 146.88.16.8; phone: +1 575-835-7370

Agenda/Minutes

News, Travel, Visitors (McMullin)

• Overall status: B configuration move ongoing. Not strong science need during the move so ideal time for testing efforts. Some stability loss recently with hardware/software updates.
• Call for proposals (Claire): 193 EVLA proposals! (normally 120-130) - first for semester system. March 22nd for technical reviews. End of May for notification.
• ApJ Special EVLA Issue: 53 responses; there will be a note in the e-news that extends interest to 15 February; estimates are that we'll get 75% of those articles. Instructions/timeline to come (expect mid-April deadline for publishing in June/July).
• Key dates:
  • 09-23 Feb: 4-band test installation
  • 14-18 Feb: Meerkat visitors (Operations)
  • 16 Feb: Correlator Fire Suppression tests
  • 07-10 Mar: New Worlds, New Horizons (Santa Fe)
  • 07 May - 15 Jun: 4-band science observing
• Staff Travel:
• Visitors:
  • 05 Jan - 06 Apr: John Cannon sabbatical at DSOC
  • 22 Feb - 08 Mar: Sonja Vrcic (Correlator)
  • 28 Feb - 28 Mar: Bob Sault

Report from Dish Verification Meeting

• DVA1 - Dish Verification Antenna 1 (SKA TDP=technology development program) - work toward a Pathfinder SKA prototype; Conceptual design review - get recommendation on whether to proceed or kill it (i.e., don't build an antenna). Napier, Woody, DeBoer, Goldsmith - recommended: significant technical design progress to warrant proceeding. NRAO leadership needed during construction phase of this project; needs an agreement between Fred/Jim Cordes (Cornell); Bob will write MOU. Rick notes: they are looking for site for construction for this summer (20 GHz top frequency - 15 m offset (15x18m)). Barn is not big enough. Needs a building to construct the dish.

Commissioning priorities for the week (McMullin, Chandler)

• Mon-Tue, Thu-Fri:
  • 0900-1700 Testing/software development time
  • 1800-0900: Science operations
• Wed: Maintenance day

• Correlator: fshift sub-band anti-aliasing causing phantom spectral lines when using recirculation for narrow bands (only worry if Michael has to prep your file)
• Correlator: Missing/mislabeled scans in data sets (small percentage but recurring).
• Correlator: time mislabeling in SDM data (non-synchronous operation between correlator dumps and CBE can require additional 1/2 integration time padding for online flags.
• Construction: RFI sweep at Ku, K, Ka, Q pre-requisite for high pass filters for use with L301.
• Calibration: Switched power heuristics for reduction.
• Array/Construction: Dhawan/Rupen: RF switch issues; new set coming to be tested.
• Correlator: Delay rocking across bands.
• Correlator: Subset of BlBs misbehaving (only affects hardware stacking modes)
• Array: Amplitude wobbles seen on subset of antennas; phase jumps at scan boundaries also seen on subset of antennas (Ka, Q bands only thus far).
• *Correlator*: missing sub-bands (initially thought tied to the station board upgrades; backed out); still occurring through 29 Jan.

Hardware status and updates (Langley, Perley, Rupen)

• Array (Perley/Langley):
  • EA16 to array on 01 Feb(?); EA13 to AAB on 01 Feb(?).
    • Antennas with 3-bit samplers: TBD
  • Links:
    • Current list of available receivers: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/evla/receivers-report
    • Upcoming receiver installs:
      • L: EA16 (09Feb), EA13 (15Mar)
      • S: EA16 (09Feb), EA13 (15Mar)
      • C EA16 EA13 (14Mar)
      • X EA13 (14Mar)
      • Ku EA06 (09Feb), EA13 (14Mar)
      • Ka EA16 (08Feb); EA13 (14Mar) - last Ka's!
      • Q Done!
  • Issues:
    • List at: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Al6JLDuYrDsBdFV0SEhDblFmT0l5Sm9vSlh6QlVyaFE&hl=en&output=html
      • Looking at a public web-based observing log (searchable).
• WIDAR (Rupen):
  • Notes: Navigated issues with recent changes; upgrades to all but StBs. fshift testing this week. Standard observing is in good shape.
• Computing (Robnett):
  • New link to Lustre guidelines: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/Main/LustreUsersDoc (Robnett).
  • Notes:

Software status and updates (Butler)

• Links:
  • Software versions/updates: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/EVLASoftwareVersioning?sortcol=table;up=#Current_Software_Versions_in_Use
• OPT webtest updated (ability to export again); Executor update.
  • Release Notes: https://staff.nrao.edu/evla/sss/opt/sssOptReleases.shtml#1.08.00
• CASA Update (new functionality available/issues/enhancements):Notes (Miriam): casapy-test is fixed and recommended (fix affected polarization angles). FO noted that he is still having some issues with UVFITS. If have issues with missing scans see CAS-2779 for information.
• AIPS Update (new functionality available/issues/enhancements): Notes: Eric is working more on comparing weights; currently TYAPL and REWAY generate different weights (different by an order of magnitude). Behaviors are self consistent.
• SDM Update: Notes:Continuing work to establish paths for CASA/AIPS use of switched power/cal device tables.

Commissioning Reports

High/Mid Frequency: Canon: Ku-band reference pointing tests

• Report here: https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/ECSV-145 ; more tests coming.

High Frequency/Correlator: Dhawan: Time-averaging CX OSRO/RSRO reference pointing tests

• Report here: https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/ECSV-146 ; no change in recommendation but both time averaging and OSRO versus RSRO seem to derive consistent results.

Group updates (Algorithm, Low Frequency, Polarization)

Commissioning Group updates and Test Planning

• Key link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/EVLACommissioningOrganization

• NOTE: Please cc me on submitted tests so that it can be assigned the appropriate priority!

• OSRO User Support (van Moorsel): Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/OSROTests
  • Notes:
• Observing Calibration/Flagging Strategies:
  • High Frequency (Claussen/Sjouwerman):Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/HighFrequencyObserving
    • Notes:
    • High Frequency: Claussen: Weak calibrator tests done; with some work, able to use 30 mJy sources at Q band; to be written up.
    • High Frequency: McMullin/Owen/Hunter: Tipping radiometer proposal
  • Mid Frequency (Dhawan):
    • Notes: Ku band reference pointing test data obtained - report (John?).
  • Low Frequency (Momjian):
    • Notes: Meeting held; actions and assignments being finalized.
• Observing Modes
  • Spectral Line (Goss/Ott):
    • Notes: See reports.
    • Spectral Line: Momjian/Sowinski: Work toward resolution of Stokes V problems.
    • Spectral Line: Dhawan: Follow-up on frequency offset phase jumps characterization.
      • https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/ECSV-132
    • Spectral Line: Ott: Doppler tracking sampling follow-up
    • Spectral Line: Discussion of potential default spectral line setups at each band.
  • Polarization (Myers/Perley): Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/PolarizationModes
    • Draft user documentation: http://evlaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=Category:Observing_Preparation
    • Notes:
    • Polarization: Antenna cross polarization (Perley; Need script.); LSCX on 3C147; Postponed until wideband X available on EA24.
  • Planetary (Butler):
    • Notes: Pluto/Charon detected at lowest frequency (Ka) with EVLA. Ongoing work with TNOs.
  • Scheduling/Rapid Response (Frail): Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RapidResponseObserving
    • Notes: Minutes from last meeting posted at: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/23Nov2010
  • Adv: Solar (Perley):
    • Notes: Pending
  • Adv: Phased array/VLBA/VBLI (Deller, Lazio): Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/PhasedArray
    • Notes: Adam update.
  • Adv: Pulsar (Brisken):
    • Notes: Paul visit status.
  • Adv: Astrometry (Mioduszewski):
• Calibrator Models
  • Notes: Status
• HPC (Bhatnagar/Owen/Golap):
  • Notes:
• Imaging (Ott/Golap):
  • Notes: Meeting pending to discuss OTF mosaicing implementation.
• Algorithm (Bhatnagar, Owen):
  • Notes:
    • Tracking for MS-MFS: https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/CAS-2480
    • Colloquium this week: Bhatnagar: Wide-band wide-field interferometric imaging: Challenges and progress
    • autoflag task: tfcrop ready for internal testing. Algorithm details, how to run/use it, parameter options and a fewsample plots are listed on:
      • http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~rurvashi/TFCrop/TFCrop.html
      • The relevant JIRA ticket is : https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/CAS-2676

RSRO/ECSO Reports

Individual reports (updates)

• Leo Ring update (AW775); Brian Kent and Aeree Chung are working on the data. Exciting early images.
• Brown dwarf pulsations; Greg presented results stored at: https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/RSRO-27

Misc:

• RSRO Calendar: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RSROCalendar
• RSRO DnC, C config status: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/2010CRSROStatus
• Test Project Codes == *TRSR*
• Guidelines for RSRO observing: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RSROObservingPreparationGuidelines
• Notes:
  • Current Residents
    • Greg Hallinan (POC: Kumar Golap); area(s):; 10B-209 (AH1020): Broadband Periodic Dynamic Spectra of Ultracool Dwarf Pulsars
    • Ashley Zauderer (POC: Dale Frail); area(s): Time-domain science; scheduling.
    • Hendrik Linz (POC: Claire Chandler); area(s): high frequency observing (calibrators); AC982 (RSRO-4): 200G/x7496
    • Sergio Dzib (POC: ); area(s): ;

Demo Science Status

• https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/EVLADemoScience

AOB

• Shift log tool

Misc Actions

• [Frail/Butler]: Enable restrictions based on proximity to sun; review OST weather trending.
• [McMullin/Frail]: %REDWrite up disposition of RR items.
• [McMullin]: Review/recover metrics for Priority 0 items.
• [Perley/McMullin]: SPW/IF/BB lexicon and mapper
• Development of WIDAR guidelines document (Michael)
• List of known problems (can be used by OSRO commissioning team (van Moorsel)
  • • Med Priority [TBD]: Phase offsets within scans (phase jump at scan boundaries). R&L phase offset on some scans - probably L302 LO problem, needs tracking down. MR: Seen on EA07, EA25 (both RR and LL)
    • Med Priority [TBD]: Added. Phase change when frequency changes (needs to be tested).
    • Med Priority [TBD]: Anti-aliasing does not behave as advertised.
    • Low Priority [TBD]: First scan often bad.
    • Low Priority [TBD]: Phase (and amp) wobbles; long history.