Date: October 10, 2019

*Time: 11 am Mountain, 1pm Eastern*
Phone: 434-817-6585 rm 220, Socorro

NOTE: Call-in number will be changing next month after an upgrade of NRAO's teleconference system.

Attending: Jim, Justin, Mark, Walter
USNO: John, Nicole, Stewart, Chris
  • VLBA Observations
    • Daily Observation Report
      • One redo in September due to possible bad data from PT and one observation rescheduled to use SC because MK had a warm receiver.
    • Other Intensive Observations
      • W-series observations were on hold in September, waiting on maint work at WZ to finish. The W-series restarted October 7, will probably run through February 2020 (60 runs).
      • A MK-WZ observations will run on Saturdays beginning December 7 2019 through March 7 2020.
        • Project code for this observation?
          • IVS project code is "qYYDOY". USNO recalls this not being an option for the VLBA. Is this indeed the case? USNO/IVS may need to do some post-observation project code (session name) editing. VLBA can use the Q-code. Will need to confirm with IVS that they'll continue to use the Q-code.
        • Will involve a new post-observing procedure for operators to copy the data to correlator in Japan.
      • O-series test of HN-OV baseline continues.
        • Will run simultaneous with the N-series observations but will not interrupt other observing.
    • Post-Monthly Report Review:
      • Adjustment made to anticipated hours for Sowders not using most of its requested time.
      • "UD009N" ran even though it was not in the September request, it is in the October request. Treating it as positive backlog hours, will correct itself in October.
    • Pre-monthly request
      • The request for November is in, it lists the O-series which is supposed to end in October.
        • Yes, USNO has sufficient sessions to test whether OV moved appreciably in the earthquakes. However, there is additional utility to continuing these sessions, so USNO requests that these session continue in this manner indefinitely.
      • A "dress rehearsal" for the MK-WZ series anticipated in November.
  • Open issues
    • SC data can now be downloaded over high speed fiber so SSDs are no longer required there. Surplus SSDs will be distributed to HN, LA and OV, SC will retain one SSD as a backup.
    • With SC now having fiber, what, if any, issues would need to be overcome to use SC in conjunction with MK and PT as part of the daily Intensives? Download of data from SC might be an issue on the correlator side.
    • How many locks are the VLBA stations putting on the SSD shipping containers? USNO says they're receiving them with only one so USNO is using a ziptie to secure the other side when they return them.
      • VLBA ACTION ITEM - SC was the only station with enough of the locks to put two on a case. LA has three shipping containers and only three locks while SC had six locks. HN and OV were not given any locks when they were sent SSDs. I'm having SC ship all but two of the locks out with the surplus SSDs and will distribute some surplus locks to the other sites. SC, HN and OV will end up with two locks and LA will have six.
    • USNO emails to ut1 list are not being forwarded along to other USNO people. Probably not an issue with the mailing list itself, something a couple levels up from USNO in the navy.mil network. NASA is experiencing similar problems. Possible fix would be to create an internal email list and then cc the ut1 list with it. Still an issue, being worked on so have not instituted any workarounds yet. No update. Mail is being blocked at DoD level, working with them on that.
    • USNO needs to renew support contract for MK fiber.
  • Networking Support Contract
    • Contract will be renewed for FY2020.
  • Correlator Refresh Contract
    • items from phase 2 hardware still at DSOC.
    • Previously the plan was shipping correlator around September 16 with tentative install the following week, was delayed. Expectation was to ship by end of September with install to be done in early October. Status? Final software bits being worked on, still hoping to have install done by end of October.
  • USNO is moving to new ingest data server and IP address needs to be whitelisted. New IP address was already in whitelist, no work needed to be done on NRAO end. USNO reports attempts to transfer data to the .179 address does not work. Looks like problem might be firewalls at USNO end? Ticket has been submitted, waiting to hear. Still outstanding, no update.
  • Transition to Mark6 recording system is underway, including 4 Gbps capability. Tests for transitioning to the higher data rate, perhaps with C-band, will be considered.
    • Currently do not have the scripts to copy recorded data off of Mark6 disk packs in case of Xcube data failure. W. Brisken to work on this.
  • New IVS session code naming structure (long-term issue)
    • There is likely to be a change to format of the IVS "session code", but no earlier than January 2020 and probably later, maybe not until 2021. As the USNO works to make the VLBA intensives look like IVS sessions we want to discuss what impacts such a change might have on this effort. This particularly relates to the 'exper_name' in the .vex files.
    • Right now "N9XXX" is used by the VLBA which USNO changes to "N19XXX". VLBA would have to change to a longer session code next year anyway, going to something like "N20XXX" because "N0XXX" was used in 2010.
    • New IVS codes will be similar to existing codes but perhaps slightly longer, for example "nYYYYDOYNN". VLBA won't have as many restrictions on project codes once we get off the VMEs so longer project codes should not cause problems.
    • USNO & Goddard have discussion about it, impact on session code will be small but length will be more than six characters (see previous point).

  • VLBA able to participate in CONT2020 (Nov-Dec 2020). (Long-term issue)

    • Won't be a full 15-day CONT2020 session but maybe a VLBA-VGOS "mini-CONT" (~5 days?)

  • USNO meeting in Albuquerque in early November, tour of VLA scheduled on November 6th.
  • Next regular telecon meeting on November 14 but a mini-meeting on November 7th in Socorro after the Albuquerque meeting is likely.

-- JimOgle - 2019-10-07
Topic revision: r6 - 2019-10-10, JimOgle
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