USNO VLBA Support Meeting

Date: February 20th, 2014

Time: 11 am Mountain, 1pm Eastern

Phone: 434-817-6584

Attending:

USNO: Nicole, John, David, Alan, Chris

NRAO: Ephraim, Walter, Peggy, K. Scott, James

Agenda

Previous Action items:
  • Action NRAO: (JRobnett): what happens when 1/2 compute nodes lose power during correlation? restart correlation or data issues?
    • Not an issue in sense that half would be on commercial power (won't be case).
    • USNO agreed.
  • Action NRAO (EFord): develop written procedure - ongoing
  • Action USNO : verify receipt of SSD external fine, provide address and POC. Confirmed OK
Status
  • Correlator:
    • Status of Phase 2
      • All components delivered
      • Working on no-cost extension for Phase 2 contract through July 11th 2014. Just needs signature.
      • UPS power needs to be installed which triggers visit by James to install additional hardware.
      • Action USNO: Need to confirm ETA of availability from power engineer. (April?)
      • Bonn is willing to support CONT14 requirements. In first 2 weeks of May this would mean USNO correlator only has to support IVS intensives and might be a good time to do this work.
      • James: Does not expect LUSTRE expansion to be intrusive. USNO agrees.
    • Other:
      • USNO correlator support contract will be managed by other group. James is waiting on USNO input. Currently held up in USNO IT dept.
      • USNO IT dept is busy with network inspection.
      • At some point in next two months this meeting will be split between daily observations & correlator support group. Probably in April.
  • VLBA Status
    • Discussion of streamlining data delivery from backup VLBA intensives
      • USNO has confirmed recipt of SSDs ok, NRAO will develop written procedure for site techs.
    • Investigate the addition of another 2 VLBA antennas for new series of 4-antenna USNO observations.
      • Craig & Chris have been discussing this.
      • Walter recommends Craig to run an observation to provide data to USNO as a test. Chris agrees. ACTION Peggy to follow up.
  • Daily Observation Report.
    • There were some issues at the end of the list, due to MK snow. Some observations (30,31) not in Mark4 format.
    • USNO should email the UT1 list as soon as issues are seen.
    • USNO quesiton: Now that data is being run consistently, what type of information would be useful to see? Number of points in scan, error on observation?
    • Walter: Both useful, look at source list and remove from source list any sources that don't provide good solutions. Also possible to add observation time on weaker sources is possible but not easy.
  • Open issues
    • National LAMBDA rail was supposed to go dark this week, but it hasn't yet. There are some routes dropped but hasn't impacted NRAO yet. They may be a change in how traffic from MK & PT reaches USNO. It will be different, not known if better or worse.
    • Walter is also visiting USNO in February. Arrives mid-day 26th at USNO, 27th at NRL, with USNO Friday , Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning.
  • Next meeting March 13th, 2014.
-- EphraimFord - 2014-02-12
Topic revision: r3 - 2014-02-20, EphraimFord
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