BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO August 2 - August 16, 2004 ******************************** THIS BIWEEK *********************************** Transitions Bob Freund, NRAO employee for 30 years and key ALMA contributor, will be leaving NRAO 2004 August 6. We wish him all the best; ALMA will certainly miss him. Angel Otarola will be continuing his studies at the University of Arizona. We hope to welcome him back when he completes this next phase of his career. Andrea Vaccari will be joining the ALMA front end group at the NRAO Technology Center this week, from Tucson. Welcome to Charlottesville, Andrea! Michael Lacasse, from Green Bank, also joins the ALMA team at the NTC--welcome Michael! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALMA Town Hall meeting planned for the 205th AAS meeting in San Diego 1:00pm Tues 11 Jan 2005. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html ******************************************************************************* General Happenings Chile: ALMA Camp is basically finished, pending beautification (painting, etc.) for environmental compliance, now uder way. Full catering services for the ALMA camp are scheduled to start in August/September 2004 after arrival of the kitchen equipment. ALMA OSF Communications installations completed and working. They include file servers, VPN server, VoIP phones, Wireless connectivity with firewall. TUC: LO Review meeting to be scheduled in Tucson end of August. ALMA System Technical Requirements document has been approved. The RF Simulator is undergoing detailed tests. Both First LO Driver assemblies have been locked to an optical reference and have been under reliable computer control. NAASC: Scott Ransom has joined us as an Assistant Scientist. NTC: NRAO has been invited to witness the qualification testing of the preproduction cyrostat, which has finally commenced at RAL. A first Band 6 cartridge structure has been shipped to NRAO; received 29 July and is undergoing testing. AOC: A sine-wave signal was passed to the DTS formatter and transmitter, through fiber on 3 colors to the DTS receiver, and processed through the correlator to yield sample statistics and spectra. This first end-to-end test of the digital system was successful. DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT) Mon 02 Aug 10:30 AM-12:00 PM: JAO / IPT Teleconference Tue 03 4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested parties) (434)296-7082 Agenda: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ Wed 04 Thu 05 8:00 AM-9:00 AM: ALMA Board Teleconference 8:30 AM-10:00 AM: JAO Teleconference Fri 06 Sat 07 Sun 08 Mon 09 1:00 PM-2:30 PM: NA DH Teleconference Tue 10 10:30 AM-12:00 PM: ASAC Teleconference 4:00 PM-5:00 PM: NAScienceIPT teleconference (open to all interested parties) (434)296-7082 Agenda: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ Wed 11 11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Software Science Req. Group Teleconference Thu 12 8:30 AM-10:00 AM: JAO Teleconference Fri 13 Good Luck! Sat 14 Sun 15 ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************** ALMA Calendar * 5 August -- ALMA Board Telecon * 10 August -- ASAC Telecon * 23 September -- ALMA Board Telecon * 24 September -- ALMA/EU Meeting, Garching * 27-28 September -- ASAC face-to-face meeting, Charlottesville * 29 Sept - 1 October -- face-to-face IPT Leads Meeting, Charlottesville * 4-8 October -- The Cool Universe: Observing Cosmic Beginnings Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaiso, Chile * 11-12 Oct -- AMAC Meeting, Florence, Italy * 11-13 Oct -- New Windows on Star Formation in the Cosmos University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland * 27-29 Oct -- Dusty and Molecular Universe Paris * 2-3 Nov -- ALMA Board Face-to-face Meeting, OSF, near San Pedro de Atacama * 2 December -- ALMA Board Telecon * 5-7 Jan 2005 -- UNSC URSI Boulder meeting Commission J * 11 Jan 2005 - ALMA Town Meeting, AAS San Diego * 27 Jan 2005 -- ALMA Board Telecon ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ******************************* Everyone has been busy writing quarterly, bimonthly, biweekly reports... *******************************ALSO OF INTEREST******************************* The deadline for SMA proposals for the next period starting on NOV 1, 2004 has been set as THU, SEP 16, 2004. The SMA Steering committee has approved the opening of about 10 percent of the observing time to outside investigators as principal investigators (worldwide). Outside investigators will be required to have an internal (i.e., black belt) collaborator (arranged by PI or assigned by TAC). Proposals will be accepted for 230 and 345 GHz. "Key" projects will also be considered. In general, projects from the current period that have not been run by OCT 31, 2004 will not be carried over. The requested information in proposals (wrt snr, uv coverage) will be changed in order to be able, if possible, to schedule partial tracks, i.e., short projects. Check the "SMA Oberver Center" Website for updated information or contact Dave Wilner, TAC chair. Note that, in compliance with CfA policy, SMA data becomes publically available 15 months after acquisition. People interested in projects at 690 GHz should contact Dave Wilner. A concentrated 690 GHz campaign will be scheduled as a block effort this coming winter. SMA Observer Center (Katz) Information about the Array and proposal preparation, and link to the restricted Test Central website http://sma1.sma.hawaii.edu ******************************************************************************* Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Janet Bauer or Al Wootten via e-mail (jbauer@nrao.edu or awootten@nrao.edu). The calendar will be issued between late Friday and sometime on Monday by e-mail to all NRAO scientific staff members and anyone else interested. A specific mailing list, alma-info, has been created for anyone wishing to receive it. Past issues are now available at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html