BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 1 July - 15 July 2007 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* The ALMA Board met in Santiago 27-28 June. The Board welcomed the two new members from East Asia: Dr. P. T. P. Ho (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan) and Dr. H. Kobayashi (Director of the VERA project, Japan). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Langley has been promoted to Division Head for the ALMA Back End IPT and as the BE IPT Leader. Congratulations, Chris! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Transitions: Jorg Eschwey, former head of the Site IPT, retired from ESO last month. Lars-Ake Nyman assumed fulltime duties as Head of Science Operations in the JAO at the beginning of July. William Garnier, fresh from a position in the ESO-Chile PR department, began his assignment as ALMA Public Relations Officer in the JAO on 2007 July 2. Ms. Alejandra Arraya, Senior Administrative Assitant in the JAO, will be leaving ALMA at the end of June to move to London. Gloria Norero is the new JAO Senior Administrative Assistant. Welcome, Lars-Ake, William and Gloria, and godspeed Jorg and Alejandra! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Past issues of this Calendar may be viewed at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html See also the JAO ALMA Calendar overview at: http://www.alma.cl/alma_project *************************************************************************** General Happenings Photos of activity may be found at: http://www.alma.nrao.edu/almanews/almagallery/index.html Sky: Venus and Saturn are low in the sky at sunset, ceding dominance of the late evening sky to Jupiter. SCO (Santiago Central Office): The ALMA Board met in Santiago 27-28 June. The Board welcomed the two new members from East Asia: Dr. P. T. P. Ho (Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Taiwan) and Dr. H. Kobayashi (Director of the VERA project, Japan). Following the recommendation of the ALMA Budget Committee and the ALMA Director, the ALMA Board approved the contract for Band 9 (.45 mm) receivers with NOVA, the contract to operate the European Front End Integration center at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories and the contract for Water Vapor Radiometers. The Board welcomed the initiative of the University of Chile to construct a prototype frontend for ALMA Band 1 but noted that this welcome development does not constitute a selection of a particular design. The Board approved the Technical Evaluation Committee’s decision to recommend that the ESO Director General award a design contract for the new Santiago Central Offices to Iglesias Pratt, a major Chilean architectural firm associated with the OSF design, including the option for underground parking, and a relocation of the guard house. The ASAC Chair Lee Mundy presented its report to the Board. AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Design and engineering of the AOS antenna station layout, interconnecting road system and power and FO distribution, by M3 Engineering is nearing completion. Road layout, antenna pad, power and FO distribution drawings have been distributed for ALMA review. Sky transparency has been excellent over the past week--nearly always below 1mm PW with several nights remaining below 0.5mm PWV. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): There are 488 people working at the ALMA site. Work has begun on the AEM antenna lay down facilities. Three mounts for the NAOJ 12m antennas are expected at the OSF shortly; other components of these antennas have been delivered. ALMA Camp extension buildings have been built, furnished and granted provisional acceptance. Vertex and ALMA cabling is ongoing in the first antenna. Major components of the second antenna are expected to leave northern hemisphere ports in early August. ATF: The ATF support team headed by Jeff Kern has started its support work at the ATF. It has been approved to prolong ATF operation until June 2008. The AEC antenna has been put back in operation after having two sectors of the azimuth motors substituted. Emerson focussed the antenna. The first steps towards dynamic interferometry were taken with the attempt to use control software to set the delay of the digitizer clock. Preproduction backends will be installed on the Vx antenna during the upcoming period. AOC: NAASC (and Socorro scientists) tested/evaluated the new alpha patch software to CASA to help get it ready for the other ARC users. Germany: The first antenna transporter successfully rolled out of its hangar and commissioning by its manufacturer began. A CASA tutorial for CASA testers organized by the ESO ARC was held at ESO for three days. Reception was favorable. Attendees included people from the ESO ARC, European ARClets, Japan and Taiwan. NTC (NRAO Technology Center): Provisional Acceptance In-House (PAI) for the third and sixth B7 cartridge was held in Grenoble on July 3. A PAI review meeting for Band 9 cold cartridges SN 4, 6 and 8 was held at SRON on 27-June-2007. Two cold cartridges may be shipped to the NA FEIC. Assembly of FE #2 is in progress and is expected to finish by July 13. Beam pattern acceptance data was acquired for Bands 6 and 7 at the Front End Integration Center (FEIC). The 2-antenna correlator is being shipped to the ATF. Testing and integration of the 2 antenna correlator at ATF is foreseen for the first week of August. NAASC: The ANASAC will meet at the NAASC on 17 August. A calendar of NAASC events may be found at: http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/calendar/calendar.php A number of ALMA-related science discussions will occur during the next fortnight at the NAASC; see the listings below. Registration for the workshop 'Transformational Science with ALMA: Through Disks to Stars and Planets' to be held 22-24 June 2007 is under way: See http://www.cv.nrao.edu/naasc/disk07/ for schedule. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Sun 1 Jul - Mon 2 Jul - Holiday Chile St. Peter & St. Paul 3:30PM: PSI/ATF telecon Tue 3 Jul - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 4 Jul - Holiday US Thu 5 Jul - Fri 6 Jul - Sat 7 Jul - Sun 8 Jul - Mon 9 Jul - Tue 10 Jul - 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 11 Jul - Thu 12 Jul - 10:00 am: Calibration group telecon Fri 13 Jul - Sat 14 Jul - 8:04 am - New Moon Sun 15 Jul - Mon 16 Jul - Holiday Chile--Día de la Vírgen del Carmen Holiday Japan--Ocean Day (umi no hi): The day marks the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Hokkaido in 1876. ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Jun 27-28 ALMA Board Meeting Santiago Jul 26 ALMA Board Telecon Aug 1 ASAC telecon Aug 17 ANASAC f2f Cville Sep 3 ALMA/Eu Community Day ESO Sep 12-13? B6 CDR Cville ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* EVLA Memo # 111 2 to 4 GHz End-to-End Signal Path Tests Authors: Keith Morris, James Jackson (NRAO) Date:July 19, 2007 Abstract: The complete EVLA 2 to 4 GHz (2.048 to 4.096 GHz) signal path has been tested in the laboratory. The test was designed to exercise the system consisting of the Gain Slope Equalizer, the 2.048 to 4.096 GHz anti-aliasing filter, and the prototype 3-bit digitizer. Tests included signal continuity, passband gain slope correction, and the effect of the Gain Slope Equalizer on system noise figure (Y-factor). View a pdf version of EVLA Memo #111 at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/memolist.shtml *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** Proposals for observations using CARMA during the period 1 January to 30 June 2008 are due on 13 September 2007. Detailed information, including capabilities to be offered this semester, sensitivities, and proposal submission instructions, may be found at the CARMA website, http://www.mmarray.org. *************************************************************************** Please send information for upcoming calendars by Friday evening of the preceding biweekly period to Jennifer Neighbours or Al Wootten via e-mail (jneighbo at nrao.edu or awootten at 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 available at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~awootten/mmaimcal/ALMACalendars.html