Summary of the GMVA Session, Sep 27 - Oct 1, 2018 ================================================== Stations participating: Ef, On, Mh, Ys, PV, VLBA(8), GBT, KVN, (GLT best effort) An intial fringe test showed fringes between all European stations (Ef, On, Mh, Ys, Pv). In general the weather in Europe Germany and Spain was quite good, while in the North (On, Mh) suffered from clouds and rain. Inspection of the VLBA webcams yield the following impression, details to be seen in the VLBA logs: 28.9 18h30 UT all clear, except NL - overcast 29.9 16h00 UT FD, LA, PT, MK, KP clear NL, BR overcast OV clouds 30.9 03h30 UT VLBA all ok 09h00 UT NL rain OV wind stow in last night 17h00 UT NL overcast KP clouds FD, LA, PT, OV, BR, MK clear 20h00 UT FD, OV clear LA, PT, KP cloudy Effelsberg: ------------ Recording was done with DBBC2 on FlexBuff. Tsys was measured at the end of the scan. The weather was very good, often cloudless, during day time pointing, focus problems affected tthe data. 27.9 20h00UT clear, good 28.8 01h00 UT clear, good 10h30 UT receiver ch1 in saturation, fixed by engineer, 2 hrs lost 12h20 UT rain 18h30 UT clear, good 29.9 08h00 UT clear, good 16h00 UT clear, good, but sun effects pointing (1510-089) 18h00 UT clear, pointing on 0716+714 possible 30.9 03h30 UT clear (3C454.3) 09h00 UT good 17h00 UT difficult pointing (had to use K3-50A) which is at some distance from target 20h00 UT clear, good 1.10 01h00 UT clear, but pointing is unstable Pico Veleta: ------------ The session went very well, although with variable weather from good to poor due to intervals of clouds. In total, 96.8% of the scheduled scans were successfully recorded. The few missed scans are mainly due to need to use some gaps to get calibration data on Mars. Note that during track c182b, Pico did not participate between UT 08:00-14:30h on day 270, since it was so indicated in the Block Schedule. While tau(225GHz) was between 0.2-0.3 on Sep 27-29, it degraded to > 0.5 on Sep 30 and Oct. 1. Metsahovi: ---------- A short summary from Metsähovi about past GMVA session: f182a: Wrong polarization setup (pols swapped). Good weather conditions. No technical problems. c182a: Wrong polarization setup (pols swapped). Good weather conditions. No technical problems. Polarization setup was fixed after c182a. c182b: Good weather conditions until Sat 29th 17:00 UT, after that cloudy (rain on night between Sat 29th and Sun 30th). No technical problems. c182c: Mostly cloudy (rain on night between Sun 30th and Mon 1st). No technical problems. Onsala: ------- The GMVA session has ended now. Onsala has no known problems with the DBBC firmware of PFB V16_2. There were clearly-seen fringes to Onsala with the correct polarisation in F182A. Both the log and antabfs files have been uploaded to VLBEER. Before and after the session, we checked our test signal, the receiver had the right LO and the proper phase stability. The weather was not very friendly, while nothing we can do to improve it. Welcome to our Astro-Flexbuff to download the GMVA data. Summary for VLBA ------------------ Summary: c182a 0444-1415 %MK all data is showing as flagged on plot c182b 1542-2020 MK data is being flagged, apparently because the ellipsoid is in manual mode. Affect to data ?? c182c 0856-1622 *PT T450 no communication. 0050-0830 %NL communications down. Here the details: VERY LONG BASELINE ARRAY OBSERVING LOG -------------------------------------- Project: C182A Observer: Krichbaum, T. Project type: VLBI Obs filename: c182acrd.* Date/Day: 2018SEP28/271 Ants Scheduled: NL FD LA PT KP OV BR MK =UT-Time===Comment===============================================MF#===%AD==AMD= Operator is Paul Padilla UT1-UTC: 0.05, VClock: 0.013, GPS delta: -16.9 0227 Begin at all sites except MK 0251-0430 *PT out for daily USNO observation SCH 200 198 0444 MK joins 0444-0455 *MK zero record rate TIME 100 11 0444-1415 %MK all data is showing as flagged on the plots. It's not clear what is causing this. 0545 New operator is Alan Kerr 1355 New operator is Betty Ragan. 1400 %FD has slow disk message. 1415 End. Downtime Summary: Total downtime : 209 min Percentage downtime of observing: 3.7% Average downtime per hour : 2.2 min Total scheduled observing time (# Antennas): 5664 min (8) VERY LONG BASELINE ARRAY OBSERVING LOG -------------------------------------- Project: C182B Observer: Krichbaum, T. Project type: VLBI Obs filename: c182bcrd.* Date/Day: 2018SEP28/271 Ants Scheduled: NL FD LA PT KP OV BR MK =UT-Time===Comment===============================================MF#===%AD==AMD= Operator is Betty Ragan. Vclock, gps delta check OK. UT1-UTC: 0.05. 1427 Begin at all sites except MK. 1542 Begin at MK. 1542-2020 MK data is being flagged, apparently because the ellipsoid is in manual mode. Ellipsoid position does not matter for these frequencies, however, so data should be fine. 1556-1557 *KP autostowed. Power glitch. COM 100 1 1625-1633 *PT recording stopped to check in a new REC 100 8 disk pack. 2004-2025 *MK parked for site techs to work on the 6cm CRYO 100 21 cryo and the ellipsoid issue. 2133 New Operator: Paul Padilla 0000 Date is 2018SEP29/272. 0454-0502 %NL raining 0545 New operator is Alan Kerr 1007-1148 *PT,MK out for daily USNO observation. SCH 200 202 1354 New operator is Betty Ragan. 1735 %OV windy. 2004-2006 *OV wind stow. Possibly false, as wind readings WEA 100 2 are high, but not that high. Hard to tell, though. 2037-2039 *OV wind stow again. WEA 100 2 2058 %NL raining. 2106-2132 *OV wind stow. Keeps stowing again when repointed. WEA 100 26 2200-2204 *OV wind stow. WEA 100 4 2205-2236 *OV wind stow again. Leaving it out for a while. WEA 100 31 2249-2328 *OV wind stow. Leaving it out again. WEA 100 39 0000 Date is 2018SEP30/273. 0148 New operator is Carolyn Morris 0456 %OV windy. 0636 End at MK. 0636-0816 *PT out for USNO. SCH 100 100 0816-0852 *PT T450 no comm. REC 100 36 0852 End. Downtime Summary: Total downtime : 472 min Percentage downtime of observing: 2.3% Average downtime per hour : 1.4 min Total scheduled observing time (# Antennas): 20360 min (8) VERY LONG BASELINE ARRAY OBSERVING LOG -------------------------------------- Project: C182C Observer: Krichbaum, T. Project type: VLBI Obs filename: c182ccrd.* Date/Day: 2018SEP30/273 Ants Scheduled: NL FD LA PT KP OV BR MK =UT-Time===Comment===============================================MF#===%AD==AMD= Operator: Carolyn Morris UT1-UTC 0.05; vclock ok; gpsdelta ok 0856 Begin. 0856-1622 *PT T450 no communication. (WO-1523) REC 100 446 1340 New operator is Betty Ragan. 2132 %KP raining. 2249-2250 *LA autostowed. Power glitch. COM 100 1 2306 %NL raining. 0000 Date is 2018OCT01/274. 0050-0830 %NL communications down. Unable to monitor observation. 0150 New operator is Carolyn Morris 0534 %KP precipitation. 0830 End. Downtime Summary: Total downtime : 447 min Percentage downtime of observing: 4.0% Average downtime per hour : 2.4 min Total scheduled observing time (# Antennas): 11312 min (8) Notes: * = Entries where data was affected. % = Entries where data may have been affected. & = Entries where the site tech was called out. WEA = Weather entries. MF# = Maintenance form or major downtime category associated with a problem. %AD = The percentage of an antenna affected by a problem. AMD = Total antenna-minutes downtime for a problem. Tsys = System Temperature (TP/SP x Tcal/2) ACU = Antenna Control Unit FRM = Focus/Rotation Mount RFI = Radio Frequency Interference VME = Site control computer CB = Circuit Breaker vclock = Program that compares site clock time to a standard.