BIWEEKLY CALENDAR OF THE ALMA PROJECT at NRAO 23 October 2006 - 6 November 2006 ******************************** THIS FORTNIGHT************************* Over two dozen containers containing the VertexRSI site erection facility building left Texas bound for Chile last week. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- More than four dozen astronomers, geodesists and meteorologists met 9-11 October near the Wettzell Fundamental Station in Bavaria for a workshop on water vapor radiometry. Presentations are posted at: http://tinyurl.com/yj6qn5 Please see also the (German) news article: http://tinyurl.com/jytkq ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T. Hunter reports that eSMA had its first tests since the JCMT 6-month shutdown was completed. The SMA can now slew the CSO remotely. Fringes were obtained with 9 antennas (7SMA + CSO + JCMT) on a record number of baselines (34 out of 36) on MWC349. (One antenna is in maintenance.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Sky: Comet Swan: http://cometography.com/lcomets/2006m4.html is a naked eye/binocular object now; there was an outburst to 4th magnitude on 24 October. Santiago: System Technical Requirements rev B is approved by the Change Control Board (CCB). AOS (Array Ops Site, 16570ft altitude): Completion of design of road, fiber and array layout on site is occurring. The design of the inner 4km configurations was approved by the Change Control Board. OSF (Ops Support Facility, 9600ft altitude): Holography tower under construction to finish early December. OSF construction earthworks continue. Temporary building for Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) is under construction and scheduled for completion 2006 Nov 7. There are about 183 persons working on the site; 113 use ALMA and contractor's lodging facilities, which are at capacity. TUC: Holdaway has been at Chajnantor working on the design of the largest ALMA array configurations. NTC: The second B6 (1.3mm) cartridge to be delivered is undergoing acceptance testing. Danilo Torres (RF) started work in Charlottesville with Antonio Perfetto. OC: Alain Baudry visiting week of 23 Oct. New hires for Assembly, Integration and Verification (AIV) in Chile have begun training. Juan Gallardo (Mech), Mauricio Zambrano (SW) and Juan Pablo Caram (Elec) started this week in Socorro. ATF: The AEC antenna can now be moved. AEC Consortium Official antenna training began on 17 October and will wrap up on 24 October. Members of P-SI, AIV and CIPT are attending the training. The first holography maps since the AEG evaluation have been made. The data are being evaluated by R. Lucas. Some residual hardware and software issues are being resolved. D. Emerson and J. Mangum will arrive at the ATF the week of 31oct to start holography scientific validation. ESO: ESO STC meeting this week. The PAI meeting for Band 9 (.65 mm) Cartridge #1 was held on 2006-10-17/18 at SRON in Groningen, The Netherlands. The meeting was successful. *************************************************************************** DAILY CALENDAR (Times EDT/EST ) see https://wikio.nrao.edu/bin/view/ALMA/AlmaCalendar Mon 23 Oct - 4:00 pm: C. Norman: "What we have learned from the Chandra Deep Field South" Tue 24 Oct 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 25 Oct 10:30 am Science IPT Telecon 3:45 pm S. Weinreb: Frontiers of Radio Astronomy -- Science and Technology MEC 339, U. Va. 4:00 pm Rogier Windhorst, ASU: The James Webb Space Telescope: How can it measure First Light, Reionization, and Galaxy Assembly? CV Aud Thu 26 Oct All Day: # Innovative Approaches to Radio Astronomy Technologies: A Tribute to the Career of John Payne. CV-Aud 10:00 am BE/IRAM Digitizer Clock (DGCK) design informal review AOC 280 Fri 27 Oct 12:00 pm: ELF Talk, NTC. S. Weinreb: "Views of the Square Kilometer Array." Sat 28 Oct Sun 29 Oct Daylight Savings time ends in U. S. Mon 30 Oct Tue 31 Oct Deadline CSO Proposals US: Halloween Holiday (Germany): Holy Day 10:30 AM-11:30 AM: JAO IPT Telecon Wed 1 Nov Holiday Chile & Germany: All Saint's Day 10:30 am: ASAC Telecon 1:00 pm: NAASC Telecon Thu 2 Nov Fri 3 Nov Holiday Japan: National Cultural Day Sat 4 Nov Sun 5 Nov National Radio Astronomy Observatory Community Open House: 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM at NRAO Charlottesville/ER. Mon 6 Nov ****************************** UPCOMING EVENTS ************************* Oct 26 all day First EASAC f2f meeting Japan Nov 6-7 all day ACA correlator CDR Japan Nov 13 Move of PSI to ATF N. M. November 8-10 all day ALMA Board Meeting Madrid Nov 13-17 all day Science with ALMA: a new era for Astrophysics Madrid Jan 16-17 '07 all day Transporter FDR Jan 29-30 '07 all day B9 Cartridge CDR ******************************* TECHNICAL NEWS ************************* EVLA Memo 105: Phase coherence of the EVLA radio telescope Authors: Steven Durand, James Jackson, and Keith Morris NRAO ABSTRACT: The design of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) project is approaching completion. Four of the twenty-seven antennas have been upgraded into the final configuration. The 2200 miles of fiber optic cables have been installed underground and are functional. The master oscillator and the round trip phase hardware have been operating uninterrupted since November 2003. Hundreds of hours of test observations have been performed as we start the task of characterizing the upgraded system. This paper discusses the results of this testing and describes the techniques used to maintain phase coherence of the EVLA LO chain and of the new wideband receivers. The enhancements to the VLA system include a new local oscillator (LO) system, a fiber optic LO distribution system, and a digital round trip phase measurement system. The phase requirement for the LO system requires that the long term phase drift slope be less than 6.0 picoseconds per 30 minutes at 40 GHz and be maintained across the entire array. To accomplish this, a near real time continuous measurement is made of the phase delay in the fiber optic cable distributing the LO reference signals to each antenna. This information is used by the correlator to set the phase on each of the baselines in the array. View a pdf version of EVLA Memo #105 at: http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla/memolist.shtml *****************************ALSO OF INTEREST*************************** The Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) encourages observing participation by astronomers from both U.S. and non-U.S. institutions. Proposals for observing time should include the CSO cover form (please use the latest version available on the web, a short abstract, and a two page scientific justification. The proposals will be reviewed by an external peer group committee and should be sent by 31 October for the observing period 1 February through 31 July as more fully described at: http://www.submm.caltech.edu/cso/cso-call.html Please send proposals by mail. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALMA PROJECT SCIENTIST The ALMA Project Scientist is responsible for ensuring that ALMA is constructed and commissioned in such a manner as to meet the scientific requirements of the ALMA Agreement. As a Key Staff Member of the JAO, the Project Scientist will contribute to decision making, overall policy development and strategic planning. The Project Scientist reports directly to the ALMA Director and interacts closely with the Project Manager and Project Engineer. Please see: http://www.nrao.edu/administration/personnel_office/careers.shtml#CL0005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jansky Fellowship The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) announces the 2007 postdoctoral Jansky Fellowship program that provides outstanding opportunities for research in astronomy. The Jansky Fellows formulate and carry out investigations either independently or in collaboration with others within the wide framework of interests of the Observatory. Prior radio experience is not required and multi-wavelength projects leading to a synergy with NRAO instruments are encouraged. The NRAO also encourages applications from candidates with interest in radio astronomy instrumentation, computation, and theory. Please see: http://www.nrao.edu/administration/directors_office/jansky-postdocs.shtml ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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