Wes, Jim B, Francisco, Jim S, Kazumasa Imai, Chuck, Jim T, Tom, Shing, Andy, Dave

SUG Minutes – 15 September, 2015

In attendance

Wes, Jim B, Francisco, Jim S, Kazumasa Imai, Chuck, Jim T, Tom, Shing, Andy, Dave

Station Reports

Wes – The FSX-1 spectrograph is currently undergoing modification to be able to receive switched RCP and LCP. Wes is currently upgrading the LGM radio room with new flooring and furniture and will install a TFD polarimeter array in the next several months.

Tom – Still making great observations with the FSX-4 and a Jove dual-dipole array; nothing much new at Heliotown.

Jim B – A second pair of crosses has been added to the LWA-style array, currently awaiting preamps for the second pair of crosses. The FSX-2 and an RTL-SDR are operating. Jim has also started a new, fancy, nice-looking web site for HNRAO.

Andy – The FSX-3 is currently running at Andy’s home with a Jove dual dipole, along with an RTL SDR. Andy is getting assistance from an undergrad who is reducing the last two years of MRAO spectrograph data to produce a catalog. A fiber-optic internet connection may be a possibility in the next several months.

Dave – Now has an automatic calibrator system—a modification of the FS-200 calibrator system—running step calibrations once a day. All else pretty much the same at AJ4CO.

All observers are urged to keep an engineering log and update their system drawings for the SUG site.

Discussion – New Info in RED

Start of the 2015-16 Season – Jupiter’s elongation will be 60° on 11 Nov 2015.

JUNO Ground-Based Observing Campaign – A group of professional and semi-professional low-frequency observatories will start observing Jupiter in January 2016. The JUNO spacecraft will go into Jovian orbit in July, 2016; but, the WAVES instrument, which receives radio emission from 10(?) kHz to 40 MHz will probably be turned on some time before that. Phillipe Zarka is leading this effort. The professional observatores involved are The Nacay Decameter Array, LOFAR, NenuFAR, UTR-2, URAN-1 through -4, LWA, OLWA, Agawa Observatory (Kazumasa Imai with crossed LPDAs and a yet-to-be-installed FSX spectrograph), Kochi University, and possibly others.

The semi-professional observatories include AJ4CO Observatory and other SUG observers who wish to participate. For SUG observers whose equipment runs 24x7, no special real-time observing is required, but it may be fun. Efforts should be made to ensure that the telescope is calibrated to the best of the observer’s ability and that the system clock is as accurate as possible with current hardware.

The idea is that SUG spectrograph data files containing observations of Jovian DAM would be uploaded to the VESPA archive (or to some intermediary prior to conversion to CDF format, if required) for subsequent use by researchers. Data would be uploaded shortly (within hours) after an observing run is complete, or, perhaps, a web service could download the data in real time from all participating SUG spectrograph RSS servers.

There is no official sign-up required. Details of the Ground-Based campaign are not yet clear. Chuck and Dave will keep the SUGgers abreast of new info as it becomes available.

RSS Versions in Use – Tom 2.2.25; Wes 2.1.20; Jim B 2.6.0 & 2.6.1; Dave 2.1.19 & 2.1.20. Jim Sky noted that the new switcher-modified FSX spectros should use RSS verion 2.5.3 or higher and that the most recent version of RSS is 2.6.1.

Spectrograph Network – The education proposal being submitted by Shing et al includes money for 5 years for development of clusters of radio spectrographs. The goal is to establish a cluster of 5 stations each year. Each cluster will include stations located within tens of km of each other. Software and hardware will need to be developed as well as data archiving and analysis capabilities. Funds may also be available to upgrade and standardize existing SUG network stations. No official news yet, but unofficial rumors seem to be encouraging.

Spectrograph and SkyPipe Data Archiving – Efforts to make the spectrograph data compliant with the PDS standards continue. Current archiving/listing opportunities exist with the VESPA, VWO, and PDS. Discussion of what pieces of metadata are scientifically desirable took place. Jim Sky sent an email to the SUG participants on 9/15 listing the metadata planned for the SPS files. The only addition to Jim’s list put forward (by Shing) is that one time stamp per sweep would be a good idea, when feasible. This may be interpolated from the starting and ending time stamps currently in use; or, they may be inserted in real time when the GPS-based sweep-start-control system becomes a reality. No subtractions from Jim’s list were put forward.

Shing mentioned that the UN’s ISWI program is trying to cope with the difficulty of asking remote observers to submit data in real time. This is similar to the problem faced by SUG observers who wish to submit large files over slower broadband connections. Shing will find out how the ISWI is planning to handle the issue and let us know about their solution(s).

Calibration – We discussed the difference between calibrating in terms of antenna temperature versus flux density. Flux density is the most desirable, but antenna temperature is often the next-best figure when the antenna beam pattern is not known with much accuracy – as is often the case with small, wide-beam, low frequency arrays.

Polarization Switching – the campaign to modify the FSX series of spectrographs to switch alternate sweeps between RCP and LCP inputs is in progress with Wes’s FSX-1 spectro presently under the soldering iron.

Time Synchronized Spectrographs – No news.

New SDR Developments – No news.

Jim Brown’s LWA Antenna Performance (Efficiency) – No news.

Phase Plane – No news.

Next SUG Telecon 29 Sep 2015 at 5:00pm EDT (844)467-6272, 352297#