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: In B configuration; 4-band dipoles are coming down tomorrow. Some issues with final antenna positions (baseline determination have been confusing for some antennas).
• Meerkat staff visit status (Butler) - M&C group included their OPT, online system and correlator software; in the design stage.
• Key dates:
  • 09-23 Feb: 4-band test installation
  • 16 Feb: Correlator Fire Suppression tests - Complete; worked 2 out of 3(!).
  • 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

Commissioning priorities for the week (McMullin, Chandler)

• Mon
  • All day: Science Operations/testing observations
• Tue
  • 0900-1700: Testing/software development time
  • 1800-0630: Science operations
• Wed: Maintenance day
  • 0630-1700: Maintenance operations
  • 1800-0900: Science operations
• Thu, Fri:
  • 0900-1700: Testing/software development time
  • 1800-0900: Science operations
• Sat-Sun
  • Science operations + planned testing

• 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);fix available pending testing verification.
• 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)
• Antenna/High Freq: Reference pointing accuracy (C, X, Ku). Rick has noted that we are worse than before - larger fraction of observations indicate larger pointing offsets (Perley).
• 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).

Hardware status and updates (Langley, Perley, Rupen)

• Array (Perley/Langley):
  • EA13 to array (24Mar).
    • 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 (23Feb), EA13 (15Mar)
      • S: EA13 (15Mar), EA18 (20Apr)
      • C EA13 (14Mar)
      • X EA13 (14Mar), EA18 (20Apr)
      • Ku EA13 (14Mar), EA18 (21Apr)
      • Ka EA13 (14Mar)
      • Q Done!
  • Issues: EA26 deformatters finally reined in; some confusion over antenna baselines.
    • 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: Update from last week: still an unresolved issue (BlB did not respond to a configuration from the CM, beginning with the RXP) - roll back confusion caused much of the rest. Some data issues over the weekend (one deformatter lost lock; one station board went bad for a period of time - being investigated today).
• 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 1.08 pending (today!); Executor update pending (this week)
  • Release Notes: https://staff.nrao.edu/evla/sss/opt/sssOptReleases.shtml#1.08.00
• CASA Update (new functionality available/issues/enhancements):Notes (Miriam): 3.2 release review
• AIPS Update (new functionality available/issues/enhancements): Notes: PCAL updates. Updates to handle fix to scaling.
• SDM Update: Notes:

Commissioning Reports

Pipeline: Sjouwerman: Pipeline development status and plans

• PipelineStatus_Sjouwerman.pdf: Pipeline status

Antenna: Jackson: ACU Meeting summary

• Working on 1 month timescale to prepare a report for a new drive system and deploy to one antenna, includes modifications to ACU, FRM and FRM motors. Have available pending funding but will be able to do array in a piecemeal fashion. This won't provide faster slew times but will enable faster settling so more time on source through observing (current number is about 6 seconds to settle can get down to 3-4 seconds).

Group updates (Low frequency, Spectral line, 4-Band wrap-up, Phased-array wrap-up)

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: Baselines updated with correct data information (Dhawan)
• Observing Calibration/Flagging Strategies:
  • High Frequency (Claussen/Sjouwerman):Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/HighFrequencyObserving
    • Draft User Documentation: http://evlaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=Category:HighFrequency
    • Notes: Meeting minutes (11Feb) posted at: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/HighFreq_03Feb11; meeting this week.
    • High Frequency: McMullin/Owen/Hunter: Tipping radiometer proposal
  • Mid Frequency (Dhawan):
    • Notes:
  • Low Frequency (Momjian): Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/LowFrequencyObserving
    • Draft User Documentation: http://evlaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=Category:LowFrequency
    • Notes: Quick summary of last meeting.
• Observing Modes
  • Spectral Line (Goss/Ott): Link: https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/SpectralLineModes
    • Draft User Documentation: http://evlaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=Category:SpectraLine
    • 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
  • 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
    • Draft User Documentation: http://evlaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=Category:PhasedArray
    • Notes: From Adam: I've updated the testing log on https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/PhasedArray with a fairly extensive summary of the activities of the last 6 weeks. Note that Paul and Scott did end up feeding the phased array data into dspsr (their coherent dedisperser / folder program) and got a nice pulse profile on J1939+2134. There's a plot on the wiki. This was on the recorded data - hopefully that gives them a good leg up to a real-time system.
      • Summary Status: summary_status_forwardplans.rtf: summary_status_forwardplans.rtf
  • Adv: Pulsar (Brisken):
    • Notes: Paul visit status.
  • Adv: Astrometry (Mioduszewski):
    • Notes: Paul visit status.
  • Adv: Low band (Owen):
    • Notes: Last test Monday morning. 60% of antennas are working (same response over ~30 MHz); bW centered at 70 MHz. Looking to buy low pass filters for all antennas - should improve things. Apr 27th have time before the science campaign to resolve outstanding issues.
• 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 Updates to this; please review.
      • The relevant JIRA ticket is : https://bugs.nrao.edu/browse/CAS-2676

RSRO/ECSO Reports

RSRO B configuration status

Individual reports (updates)

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
    • Laura Chomiuk (POC: Juergen Ott); area(s): spectral line observing (bandpass stability); AS1015 et al. 200C/7497
    • Adam Deller (POC: Ken Sowinski); area(s): phased array;
    • Sergio Dzib (POC: Amy Mioduszewski); area(s): astrometry; BL175; 200E/7246
    • Ken Kellerman (POC: -); area(s): data review; 10B-104; 300G/7333
    • Hendrik Linz (POC: Claire Chandler); area(s): high frequency observing (calibrators); AC982 (RSRO-4): 200G/x7496
    • Ashley Zauderer (POC: Dale Frail); area(s): Time-domain science; scheduling. 10C-145/AB1369; 200G/7334

Demo Science Status

• https://safe.nrao.edu/wiki/bin/view/EVLA/EVLADemoScience
• Next week Herc A (Perley/Cotton)

W51 Status report: Golap

AOB

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]: Added. Phase change when frequency changes (needs to be tested).
    • Med Priority [TBD]: Anti-aliasing does not behave as advertised. - Sault visit * Low Priority [TBD]: Phase (and amp) wobbles; long history.fshift investigation.