Telescope System Status Report
The following contains up-to-date information on the telescope system. If
there have been any recent failures in any of the telescope system components,
they are reported here so that observers with pending observing programs can use
this information to form their observing strategies.
Last update: November 17, 2005
Frontends
| Name |
Available |
Out of Service |
| 2mmsis |
OK |
|
| 3mmhi |
OK |
|
| 3mmlo |
OK |
|
Backends
| Name |
Available |
Out of Service |
| 30 KHz |
OK |
|
| 100KHz |
OK |
|
| 250 KHz |
OK |
|
| 500 KHz |
OK |
|
| 1000 KHz (plain) |
OK |
|
| 1000 KHz ( Red ) |
OK |
|
| 2000 KHz (plain) |
OK |
|
| 2000 KHz ( Red ) |
OK |
|
| MAC |
OK |
|
| DBE |
OK |
|
General
To submit an observing proposal,
please refer to the call for proposals at 12 M
Proposal Information.
- Call the operator at (520) 318-8670 to get the password for remote
observing.
- All 1mm observing is now done at the 10 Meter SMT using the new
1-2mmsis J-T
Receiver.
A new remote observing manual is available online. This manual provides
detailed instructions for conducting a remote observing session at both ARO
facilities (KP12m and HHSMT).
Telescope
Functioning Normally
Tipper
Functioning Normally
Pointing
Radio pointing has been stable this past season with few exceptions with no
significant dependence with EL or AZ.
Receivers
-
A new refrigerator has been installed in the 23mm receiver
with additional modifications to the radiation shield. These upgrades should
improve the reliability of the closed-cycle cooling system.
-
All Gunn Servos for the local oscillator have also been rebuilt
to allow greater ease of receiver tuning.
68-90 GHz:
Available.
90-116 GHz:
Available.
130-170 GHz:
Available.
205-295 GHz:
Remove from Service. All 1mm observing is now done at the 10 Meter SMT
using the new
1-2mmsis J-T
Receiver.
Spectrometers
Filter Banks:
All resolutions are presently
available.
Each filter bank has been individually tested and
leveled.
Millimeter Autocorrelator (MAC):
The MAC is functioning normally in all 2IF modes.
Basic Functions:
- OTF mode is now available for modes with less than a total of 16k
channels.
- All position and frequency switched observing modes are functional.
- Both Class and UniPOPS can process MAC spectra. UniPOPS cannot process
the 32768 channel mode. Since the analog filters have 75% efficiency for all
modes, we now default, clip off the edges of MAC spectra. This is a
user-definable parameter.
- An NRAO written report describing the basic properties of the MAC can be found
here.
Control Software
During the summer of 2004 all high level computers were upgrade to new
Intel PC's running Linux. All backends still are using Motorola VME computers
running vxWorks. Observers should not notice any different in usability other
then a massive increase in performance.
| 
