BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO November 8 -- November 22, 2004 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT********************************* The Committees of both Houses of Congress have reported to the floor a FY05 funding bill for independent agencies (including NSF) which contain full construction funding for ALMA. Action on an omnibus spending bill including this funding is expected before Thanksgiving. FY05 will be the 7th consecutive year of ALMA funding. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALMA currently operates on a budget defined in 2002 October. Updating this budget and the ALMA schedule to reflect current reality has begun; this process is known as rebaselining. Individual IPTs are currently updating their budgets to reflect what can be built on the available budget and schedule. These individual budgets will be combined into the rebaselined ALMA early next year, which will be presented to the ALMA Board for discussion and approval. In the Spring, NSF will conduct an invasive review of the by-then rebaselined ALMA. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Antenna bids have been extended to 2004 Dec 15, after the ESO Finance Council and ESO Council meetings. The goal stated by the ALMA Board is "...64 antennas... in equal numbers from Europe and North America, and the goal of identical products" --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eduardo Donoso will become the new NA ALMA IPT lead, to replace Simon Radford who has now joined Caltech to work on the Cornell-Caltech 25-m telescope project. The JAO has also endorsed this appointment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html ******************************************************************************* General Happenings Santiago: The JAO began functional operations in the interim quarters on the 18th floor of No. 3650 Apoquindo. See http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/santiagoopens.html SPdA: The bidding procedure for the construction of the Technical Facilities at the OSF has been started. Currently there continue to be approximately 70 persons and 24 pieces of heavy equipment (bulldozers, graders, loaders, trucks etc.) working at the site. Road construction for the permanent access road continues. Work is progressing between km 22 and km 28. The formation level between km 15 and 26 is almost complete. Some blasting is being executed at km 21.3. Mass excavation at the OSF and road construction from km 0.00 to km 7 continues. Approximately 4 km of road formation level have been established at that area. Tucson: Work continued on test of the laser synthesizer, support of SI phase noise tests, rack mounting of assemblies for the SI central LO rack, design and procurement for the line length corrector, and external ICDs. AOC: Two more Vega 1 digitizers from UB have arrived at U. S. Customs. A review of the new BE requirements document pointed out the need to complete the LO system analysis initiated but not completed by the departed System Architect, and to move frequency switching to the 1st LO synthesizer. Offline (AIPS++) user test started (NRAO) NTC: Cryostat #1 was cryo-cycled for the second time at the integration center. The results were consistent with the previous cool down. A Provisional Acceptance on Site meeting for production cryostat #1 was held in Charlottesville on November 2. It was agreed that the cryostat is provisionally accepted. Beam tests for the Band 6 (1.3mm) cartridge continue. Tests of the prototype bias supply are also being conducted. ). Two batches of Band 6 triplers have been cryogenically qualified and two more are scheduled for testing this week. One complete correlator station rack and one complete correlator rack have been populated and brought to life. The PDR for the Tunable Filter Bank was held Oct 18-20 in Bordeaux. The third day was a software working meeting. The PDR was chaired by Robert Laing and it was considered successful; a final report has been issued. NAASC: Please see the October NRAO Newsletter for a report. DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT ) Monday, 8 November 9:30 AM-10:30 AM: NA Project Office Staff Meeting 10:30 AM-11:30 PM: JAO/IPT Teleconference Tue 09 Nov 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 10 11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Software Science Req. Group Teleconference Thu 11 All day event: NRAO Holiday 8:30 AM-10:00 AM: JAO Teleconference Fri 12 Sat 13 Sun 14 Mon 15 10:30 AM: JAO/IPT Teleconference 11:30 AM: NA IPT Lead Teleconference Tue 16 10:30 AM-11:00 AM: Science IPT Telecon Wed 17 Jansky Symposium Charlottesville Thu 18 8:30 AM-10:00 AM: JAO Teleconference Fri 19 Sat 20 Sun 21 ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ****************************** ALMA Calendar * 9 November -- ASAC Telecon * 16 November -- Science IPT Telecon * 2 December -- ALMA Board Telecon * 5-7 Jan 2005 -- UNSC URSI Boulder meeting Commission J * 6 Jan 2005 -- ANASAC Telecon * 11 Jan 2005 - ALMA Town Meeting, AAS San Diego * 27 Jan 2005 -- ALMA Board Telecon ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ******************************* ALMA Memo # 506 PMD Effects on the Analogue Signal Transmission P. Shen, N. J. Gomes, P. A. Davies (UKent), W. P. Shillue (NRAO), P. G. Huggard (RAL) Keywords: PMD, Polarisation, phase drift, Photonic LO We address the effects and problems of the polarisation mode dispersion (PMD) in the fibre transmission system for the Photonic LO. PMD is a random phenomenon, and varies from fibre to fibre, time to time and wavelength to wavelength. First, its value directly affects the efficiency of the LO generation. Then, the long term and short term stability of the PMD affect the long and short term phase stability of the delivered LO signal. It is suggested that ultra low PMD fibre should be used to preserve LO generation efficiency, to minimize system outage, and also maintain better phase stability (less phase drift). Measures to minimize the PMD effects are suggested. The polarisation mode noise at the receiver is also discussed. Any components in the receiver with large PMD, such as optical isolator, amplifier and photodetector will result in observable polarisation mode noise in the presence of large input polarisation fluctuation. A major contributor to this fluctuation is the antenna wrap, which has to be designed with care. View a pdf version of ALMA Memo #506. http://www.alma.nrao.edu/memos/html-memos/alma506/memo506.pdf *******************************ALSO OF INTEREST******************************* Level One Science for ALMA was presented at the DUSTY04 conference by Carlos DeBreuck http://aramis.obspm.fr/DUSTY04/talks/debreuck.ppt and John Richer http://aramis.obspm.fr/DUSTY04/talks/richer.ppt ******************************************************************************* Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail (jneighbo@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