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: C configuration OST-driven science observing; ongoing testing for 3-bit, switched power, etc. Brent Carlson visiting (focused on WIDAR connectivity and robustness). Planned power outage at the end of the week (starting 0700 Friday through Saturday as needed). Wiki madness - staff wiki to public wiki migration - will send out updated link.
• Key dates:
  • 05 Nov: New Mexico Symposium
  • Dec 2010: Call for Proposals for February 2011 Call (first for new semester based system; tentative)
  • 08-12 Jan: AAS with special NRAO sessions:
    • NRAO Town Hall: http://science.nrao.edu/events/aas217townhall.shtml
    • Special Session: "Early Science with the EVLA": http://science.nrao.edu/events/aas217evla.shtml
    • Special Session: "Observing with ALMA": http://science.nrao.edu/events/aas217alma.shtml
  • 01 Feb: Proposal deadline for D configuration+
• Staff Travel:
  • Perley: 23 Sep - 19 Oct
  • Wrobel: 24 Oct-27 Oct
  • DRAO: Dougherty: 11 Oct - 12 Oct (SKA; ABQ)
• Visitors:
  • Brent Carlson: 18 October - 25 October; second trip post SKA meeting TBD

Hardware status and updates (Langley, Perley, Rupen)

• Array (Perley/Langley):
  • EA14 final integration (collimation checkout last night); EA24 headed in for electronics overhaul - out by next week.
    • Note problems with EA27 (50-100 ns jumps) for several months; being investigated.
    • Antennas with 3-bit samplers: EA12, EA15, EA22, EA28
  • Links:
    • Current list of available receivers: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/cgi-bin/evla/receivers-report
    • No new receivers this week.
• WIDAR (Rupen):
  • Phased array testing (Adam/Joe) very successful (See: https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/ECSV-100). Brent visiting. Plans for this week: switched power testing; CRM time; 3-bit follow-up; EA15's sampler brought back to the labs.
    • Time averaging test data taken last night (after solving OPT issue).
• Computing (Robnett):
  • New link to Lustre guidelines: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/Main/LustreUsersDoc (Robnett).

Software status and updates (Butler)

• Links:
  • Software versions/updates: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/EVLASoftwareVersioning?sortcol=table;up=#Current_Software_Versions_in_Use
• Notes: MCAF update made last Wednesday (no known issues); OPT 1.06 on webtest; meeting today to discuss testing. PST handling preparation for next cycle.
• CASA Update (new functionality available/issues/enhancements):Release delayed for some performance enhancement issues.
• AIPS Update (new functionality available/issues/enhancements): Ongoing work with switched power. Able to edit tables and plot Tsys or Tcal. Added to SNEDT - can flag based on uvdata (to get rid of off-source data). TSMO provides clipping and smoothing. SPLIT now handles sources with multiple calcodes. FGPLOT can handle any # of baselines. FRING does RL delay, can ask to fit 1st half of IFs together (AC vs BD fit); seems to help.
• SDM Update: Updated document. Links.

Observing recommendations update (Ops)

• Notes:Testing this week (in particular to relax the C->X reference pointing and potentially the OSRO dummy scans).
  • Link: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RSROObservingPreparationGuidelines
• Development of WIDAR guidelines document (Michael)

Commissioning priorities for the week (McMullin, Chandler)

• CBE update testing
• Switched power testing
• CBE averaging sign-off tests (also pending response from first RSRO projects).
• Next OSRO cycle testing (delayed from last week)
• Science and...
• Interrupt status for additional 3-bit testing

Commissioning Reports

Planetary: Butler: Pluto observations

• Easily detected (400 micro Jy) but not resolved with Charon; large amount of flagged data (later understood due to a non-optimal LST start time range and low elevation).

Calibration: Dhawan: Switched power testing

• Using OBIT bdf conversion to AIPS format. Still exploring but using new tools to flag on Tsys data (more next week).

Demo science: Fomalont: Fornax calibration and imaging results

• Link: fornax_report-1.pdf: fornax_report-1.pdf

In preparation

• Polarization: Multi-band leakage/PA (Myers, Marvil): Not a priority but still needed; keep on list.
• Correlator: Krauss/Hunter: 7 vs 8 node observing (follow-up; pending RSRO results)

Commissioning Test Planning

• OPT: webtest of 1.06 capabilities/bug fixes (*); ongoing (Lorant, Michael, Joe)
• Calibration: Switched power on/off 1dB attenuators. Data taken: 10/18
• Array: RF switch tests with rapid monitoring (as possible but likely not this week).
• Correlator: CBE averaging with restricted nodes
• Correlator: Quadrant 2 tests; CM update test.
• Calibration: Switched power tracking over several airmasses.
• Polarization: Antenna cross polarization (Perley; Need script.); LSCX on 3C147; Delayed until Rick's return
• Spectral Line: Dhawan: Follow-up on frequency offset phase jumps characterization.
• Spectral Line: Ott: Doppler tracking sampling follow-up
• Spectral Line: Momjian: Zeeman test follow-upHigh frequency/low frequency results.

RSRO/ECSO Reports

10B-104: Kellerman/Kimble: First results: fair amount of interference seen. Surprised to see bandpass variations over a single subband (stability was noted as the key); more later.

AL746: Leroy: First results: problems on a subset of antennas; still being looked at.

10B-209: Hallinan: First results - not this week.

Other

• Satoko: Also saw lots of flagged data; will send report to be rolled in.
• Urvashi seeing missing subbands; will report.

Other updates:

• AC982: Seeing delay jitter on EA08 on all IFs, subbands, etc (from August); note for C-band observations, the inclusion of the interim Rxs complicated the reduction (in a non-closing way); flagging these antennas is needed.

• Coming
  • 10B-124: Hofner: Test run (TRSR0022) results. https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/RSRO-26
• RSRO Calendar: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RSROCalendar
• RSRO DnC, C config status: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/2010CRSROStatus
• Test Project Codes == *TRSR*
• Guidelines for RSRO observing: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RSROObservingPreparationGuidelines

• Notes:
  • Current Residents
    • Volker Heesen (POC: Michael Rupen); area(s): polarimetry
    • Peter Hofner (POC: Juergen Ott); area(s): post-processing
    • Russ Taylor (POC: Rick Perley); area(s): polarimetry
    • Satoko Takahashi (POC: Juergen Ott); area(s): continuum, mosaicing; 10B-126 (AT380): A Millimeter Study of the Embedded Star-Cluster in the Orion Molecular Cloud.
      • Hauyu Liu (POC: Juergen Ott); area(s): continuum, mosaicing
    • Greg Hallinan (POC: Kumar Golap); area(s):; 10B-209 (AH1020): Broadband Periodic Dynamic Spectra of Ultracool Dwarf Pulsars
    • Adam Leroy (POC: TBD); area(s):; 10A-196 (AL746): Resolving the Starbursts in Nearby LIRGs and ULIRGs
    • Jill Knapp (POC: Rupen/Claussen); area(s): recirculation; IRC+10216 demo science; 10B-200;10B-186. Welcome again.

Demo Science (Chandler/Condon): Project Codes: *TDEM*

• • Status: Complete; filling in some hours during move. Nice coarse spectra from IRC+10216: https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/ECDATA-287
  • Update for C configuration coming from Claire.

Commissioning Group updates

• OSRO User Support (van Moorsel): Link: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/OSROTests
  • Notes:
• Observing Calibration/Flagging Strategies:
  • High Frequency (Claussen/Sjouwerman):
    • Notes:
  • Mid Frequency (Dhawan):
    • Notes:
  • Low Frequency (Momjian):
    • Notes:
• Observing Modes
  • Spectral Line (Goss/Ott):
    • Notes:
  • Polarization (Myers/Perley): Link: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/PolarizationModes
    • Notes:
  • Planetary (Butler):
    • Notes:
  • Rapid Response (Frail): Link: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/RapidResponseObserving
    • Notes:
  • Adv: Solar (Perley):
    • Notes:
  • Adv: Phased array/VLBA/VBLI (Deller, Lazio): Link: https://staff.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/PhasedArray
    • Notes:
  • Adv: Pulsar (Brisken):
  • Adv: Astrometry (Mioduszewski):
• Calibrator Models
  • Notes:
• HPC (Bhatnagar/Owen):
  • Notes:
• Algorithm (Bhatnagar, Owen):
  • Notes:

AOB

• Brent talk on proposal for SKA correlator; next Thursday for discussion on Zeeman observations (Momjian).
• Note: Solar observing discussions this week with Tim Bastian and with CCB.

Misc Actions

• [McMullin/Frail]: %REDWrite up disposition of RR items.
• [McMullin]: Confirm restriction of RSRO scan length at 90 s
• [Owen]: Outline issue with 90s scan length restriction.
• [McMullin/Durand]: Clean up outdated MainSaver issues.
• [McMullin]: Review/recover metrics for Priority 0 items.
• [Perley/McMullin]: SPW/IF/BB lexicon and mapper
• List of known problems (can be used by OSRO commissioning team (van Moorsel)
  • • Med Priority [Rupen]: X, Ku band subbands are inverted (IF 1 is labelled as IF4, IF2 as 3, IF3 as 2, IF 4 as 1). Noted that this had been tested but there were enough changes to warrant a re-do.
    • 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.