MMA Imaging and Calibration Group

Minutes for meeting Mon, 13 December 1999 at 4pm EST.

Date: 13 December 1999

Time: 4:00 pm EST (2:00 pm Socorro, 2:00 pm Tucson)

Phone: (804)296-7082 (CV SoundStation Premier Conference phone).

Past minutes, etc on MMA Imaging and Calibration Division Page

Minutes

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News - Wootten

From the Division Heads meeting.

The antenna contract is being drawn up for AUI and NSF approval. NRAO's choice of contractor is Vertex Antenna Systems, Santa Clara, CA.

FY2000 Budget due. Any input?

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ALMA SW-SSR Group and Exploder - Glendenning

The next meeting will be in Socorro; a two day working meeting on Jan 13-14.

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Issues for the 30-46 GHz band on ALMA - Myers

You can find a brief (4 page) draft of the summary for Issues for the 30-46 GHz band on ALMA

I will be working on the larger document over the weekend and into next week, and will make it available on

my ALMA page

then. I hope this is a start for discussions on Monday.

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Configuration PDR - Min, Butler, Wootten, Radford, Kogan

We probably won't call this a PDR, as that might give people the idea that the plans are firmer than they are. This was tentatively set for 6-7 Mar. However, the ASAC is planning a face-to-face meeting in Leiden on 10 Mar so I would rather not have the configuration meeting so close before that. 20-21 Mar??

Linking with Mark Gordon's development plan suggests that the PDR itself should occur by early to middle summer 2000.

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SAC Meeting - Wootten

Second Joint ALMA Science Advisory Committee Meeting 13 Dec 1999.

SAC members have been appointed.

Agenda:

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ALMA Science Advisory Committee Meeting

Date: 13 December 1999

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Agenda for SAC Meeting

[Minutes of 29 Nov meeting at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/sac29nov.html]

Draft Agenda -Dec. 13, 1999

1. Confirm Date and Place for First Face-Face meeting

We suggested Mar. 1-3 somewhere in/near DC. Can we settle on this?

2. How to operate?

We need to discuss a bit how we will operate.

Who does minutes?

How do we address issues raised by engineering groups? (via Project Scientists?, directly from technical people? ...) (subgroups to keep track of particular issues?)

How do we get input from the larger community? (Announce our existence and membership in various forums, like star formation newsletter, AAS newsletter, etc.)

How do we raise issues to the project? (Via Project Scientists? More directly? Reports to AEC?)

How to speak with a unified voice?

3. Receiver Issues

Are we satisfied with the Grenoble recommendations? (At that meeting, it was decided that prototype receiver work that was already ongoing would be developed further by those groups:NRAO - 90 GHz and 230 GHz bands; SRON - 600 GHz band; and Onsala- 345 GHz band.) If not, what do we do?

What about bands after the first four?

Can we allow 30-45 GHz in long run while keeping it lower priority for now? Steve Myers has written a summary for "Issues for the 30-46 GHz band on ALMA" at http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/alma/alma43ghz-summary.ps he will be working on the larger document over the weekend and into next week, and will make it available on his ALMA page http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/~smyers/alma/

Circular polarization (Crutcher?)

Larry D'Addario has put most of the ALMA/US receiver specifications together into one document, which can be found at: http://www.tuc.nrao.edu/~ldaddari/rcvrSpecs.txt . Comments?

4. Total power issues

Nutating subreflectors, total power stability requirements (these seem very interrelated to me)

5. Correlator issues

Responses to questions by Steve Myers.

6. Water Vapor Radiometer

What is the path for making decisions on this?

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Action Items 15November99

DECISION: Configurations--where are we? Feb meeting plans...

DECISION: 183 GHz or 22 GHz phase correction?

DECISION: Is a nutating secondary necessary?

DECISION: What is the effect of 1/f noise in the HEMT amplifiers of SIS receivers upon our ability to combine total power and interferometric images into a faithful representation of the sky?

MEETINGS: SAC meeting 13 December 1999 for members only.

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Travel

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