MMA Imaging and Calibration Group

Agenda for meeting Tuesday, 29 Aug 2000 at 4:00pm EDT.

Date: 29 Aug 2000

Time: 4:00 pm EDT (2:00 pm Socorro, 1:00 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

The ASAC meeting occurs 9-10 September. There will be a telephone ALMA/US-MDC-ImCal meeting on 5 September at 4:30 pm EDT. The agenda is the ASAC agenda.

"NSF is also pleased to be playing a leadership role in developing the international partnership for ALMA--the Atacama Large Millimeter Array." --remarks of Dr. Rita Colwell, Director, NSF, at the Dedication of the Green Bank Telescope, August 25, 2000.

Summary time again!! Last month's summary is available.

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JRDG - Wootten

the JRDG will hold it's next meeting on 7 and 8 September in Cambridge, UK. One of the important topics of discussion and decisions at this meeting will be the receiver optics and calibration. The receiver calibration in our opinion (John and Wolfgang) consists in providing the conversion between input load temperature and receiver output power (volts/counts) with sufficient accuracy and linearity over a certain range. Other calibration issues like atmospheric influence, calibration strategy (inlcudong recommendations for rx calibration) etc should be part of a calibration plan and should be handled by the science and system groups.

The optics design has reached a point where further progress can only be achieved if the JRDG takes decisions on

- number of calibration loads (or load temperatures)

- nature of calibration loads (sky, cryogenic, ambient, hot)

- temperature difference between loads, fixed or variable ?

- calibration intervals

Useful input for reaching these decisions include

- required accuracy of receiver calibration

- desirable load temperatures

- engineering feasibility (e.g. bandwidth and reflectivity of cryogenic windows, accuracy of load temperatures etc)

- or even a calibration plan (as asked for by the ASAC in its March 2000 meeting).

Please send any relevant information/input/ideas (even if it is not in perfect publishable form) before the meeting to John or Wolfgang or bring it to the meeting to ensure that it can be taken into account during discussions.

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Calibration -- Mangum

See Plambeck's memo and Jeff's memo .

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Configuration simulations - Yun or Wootten

See here for the agenda. Also see the new ALMA Memo by Min and Leonia .

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Action Items 1 Aug2000

DECISION: Configurations--where are we? Next phone meeting plans...ACA/THzA?

DECISION: Implementation of 183 GHz WVR?

DECISION: Are the specs for a nutating secondary correct?

DECISION: What is the total power specification on the ALMA?

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?

Year 2000

January February March April
May June July August
September October November December

May, 2000

May, 1-2 Site Development Discussions Garching, Germany
May 15-17 Test Interferometer Planning Tucson, Arizona

June, 2000

Jun, 12-16 2nd IRAM Millimeter Interferometry Summer School IRAM Grenoble, France
June 19-20 Vertex Antenna PDR Duisburg, Germany
Jun, 20-27 7th Synthesis Imaging Summer School Socorro, USA
June 21-22 EIE Antenna PDR Venice, Italy

July, 2000
August, 2000
September, 2000
October, 2000

October 13 ACC Meeting Paris, France

November, 2000
December, 2000
Send comments to <tcontini@eso.org>
Last modified: Tue Feb 22 09:55:07 MET
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