AGENDA
Final Version
Walter
Alef
Local Arrangements/Opening Remarks (Mantovani & Alef)
Approval & last minute additions to Agenda [All]
Review of Action Items from last meeting (all; see appended list)
Reliability/Performance of the EVN (JIVE)
"near-realtime" fringe checks, progress report (JIVE)
NME results
feedback from last sessions (reports from all stations, JIVE)
Interference monitoring, status? (all)
Amplitude Calibration (Cimo?)
Timely delivery of results? (JIVE)
Quality of calibration: feedback from pipeline and NMEs (JIVE,all)
Quality of pipeline results for feedback, improvements?
GNPLT and calibration problems (separate receiv. temp for L and R)
gain curves free of opacity corrections, status?
Continuous cal with VLBA terminals, implementation status? (de Vicente, Graham)
Discussion: DBBC and calibration
Cambridge calibration, status (Burgess)
Automatic flagging, any new problems? (all)
Mark 5
Status: Mark 5A/B/B+/C, software, SATA (Whitney)
EVN Mark 5A/B status, SDK 7/8, SATA, e-VLBI (Alef/Szomoru/Kettenis)
Discussion: when and how will EVN switch to Mark 5B
Mark 5 problems encountered during last 2 sessions (all)
Disk inventory and purchase status (Alef, all)
Disk throughput at JIVE, balancing with NRAO, status (Campbell)
1 Gbit/s as default for continuum observations, status (Alef)
Mark 5 logistics (repairs, shipping, boxes, labels, etc.) (all)
Digital BBCs status (Tuccari)
configurations, prices, delivery time, firmware status, tests
results of survey (Alef)
Haystack digital backend status
Field System, status and new features (Himwich)
Automatic near-realtime fringe checks
DBBC support
Checks of Mark 5 performance
Phase-cal decoding
vex schedule naming conventions
Wettzell remote control system (Neidhardt)
Dynamic scheduling (Small)
Data acquisition system for 4 Gbit/s, wide IFs EVN status (Alef)
report of sub-committee
status of planning
discussion
VSOP2
presentation of the project
discussion on technical interfaces between spacecraft and GRTs of EVN
Sched Developments (??)
e-VLBI status
EVN e-VLBI efforts, EXPReS developments (Szomoru)
Haytack e-VLBI status (Whitney)
8-Gbps eVLBI howto (Ritakari)
AOB
TOW 2009 at Haystack: suggestions for the program
TOG involvement in IYA 2009
Continuation of TOG support in FP7; time and place of the next meeting.
Please provide written Station and Correlator reports by September 17!
List of action items:
Action Item 1: Following approval by the Director, Garrington to produce documentation for the Mk2/Lovell phase referencing technique.
Action Item 2: Polatidis, Lindqvist and Burgess to define standards for RFI monitoring and report at the next meeting.
Action Item 3: Format of Wx information in logs to be checked for Torun.
Action Item 4: de Vicente to report on implementation of continuous tpi on VLBA systems.
Action Item 5: Reynolds and Walker to incorporate frequency agility information in SCHED.
Action Item 6: Paragi and Foley to produce a guide for polarization calibration using WSRT local interferometry data.
Action Item 7: JIVE software correlator group to implement labelling of fringe plots with sky frequency and sideband.
Action Item 8: Owners of mixed astronomical/geodetic disk pools to give database information to Alan Whitney. Foley to add a wiki page for astronomical/geodetic disk labelling information.
Action Item 9: Campbell to look into producing phase-cal plots at JIVE.
Action Item 10: Stations to produce opacity-free gain curves for the next session. Lindqvist and Graham to produce a document describing what stations and users need to do. JIVE support scientists to inform users.
Action Item 11: Alef to ask Mantovani if Directors can donate money to purchase spare Mark 5 backplanes, and any other spare parts if needed.
Action Item 12: Himwich to be contacted regarding implementing slow disk warnings in the Field System.
Action Item 13: EVN Scheduler to try to schedule future NMEs in the early part of the day in Europe, to better facilitate rapid response to fringe test feedback.
Action Item 14: Reynolds to discuss with Craig Walker a change to the current 90-minute no gap warning in SCHED, to reduce the maximum interval for EVN stations.
Action Item 15: Orlati to contact Himwich regarding separation of LCP and RCP receiver temperatures in the FS and GNPLT, as they may be different.
Action Item 16: Bach, Zsolt Paragi and Tony Foley to sort out how to make Westerbork and Effelsberg flux densities available before the next session.
Action Item 17: Reynolds to look at Westerbork automatic flagging problem.
Action Item 18: Whitney to send information on Mark 5 OS and control code package upgrade procedure.
Gunn to send email before each session when the final versions of all schedules are ready for download.
All should check that Mk5 modules are placed squarely on a flat surface when received, otherwise connectors are easily damaged when bent 8-packs get inserted in Mark 5 units.
All stations should condition disk packs if time permits, especially those which are to be used for 1Gbps recording. If a disk pack is found to be not suitable for 1Gbps recording, the label can be changed to 512 Mbps.
All stations which do both astronomy and geodesy should clearly distinguish between astronomical and geodetic 8-packs and ensure there is no "leakage" into the wrong pool, as mixing pools can create problems for scheduling.
Disk packs should be shipped with one European and one US address on covers so they can be easily returned in case a shipment is lost in transit.
All stations should look at data regularly with chchk program, use it to locate significant RFI and report the results to Polatidis and CRAF representatives, and use it to check phase-cal throughout the session. The chchk program can be run in gaps, or for example on ftp data files.
All stations should monitor Tcal throughout sessions. This can be done by running ANTABFS and plotting the results.
All stations should forward FS error log files to Himwich in the event of a crash, including details of what the FS was doing when the crash occurred.
All stations should try to run the FS diagnostic tests and investigate the results.
All stations should ship disk packs as soon as they are full, at least once per week, following the Bologna rules.
All stations should look at pipeline results available from the EVN data archive pages at JIVE, in particular amplitude corrections found by selfcal on strong, compact calibrators. JIVE support scientists should include a comment on the quality of amplitude calibration results, especially to indicate cases where a problem may have occurred and the amplitude correction factors are unreliable.
NME calibration files should be made available as early as possible. All stations should look at NME reports sent by JIVE. NMEs should be pipelined as early as possible and email sent to EVNtech when the results are available, to ensure feedback is provided well in advance of the next session.
Stations must aim to produce ANTAB and RXG files within 2 weeks after the end of a session. For e-VLBI, RXG files from the previous session can often be used. ANTAB files for e-VLBI experiments should be produced as soon as possible as rapid analysis is often a high priority for these experiments. JIVE should inform Alef of any problems, so that Directors can be asked to prioritise calibration if insufficient time is available at stations.