Jim T,B, S, Chuck,Shing, Francisco, Whit, Tom, Dave,Andy, Wes, Dick

SUG Minutes – 24 Nov,2015

In attendance

Station Reports – New Info in RED

Whit – Nothing new – still lots of RFI

Tom – Very interesting observation that WWV can be seen on the spectro at 20 and 25 MHz via reflection from meteor ionization trails.

Jim B –New array of 4 LWA style antennas is on the air – testing underway – Jupiter continues to be shy.

Wes – Equipment being mounted in a rack – new operating room nearing completion

Now has FSX-1S upgraded polarization switching spectrograph. TFD array coming soon.

Dave –All pretty much the same at AJ4CO.

Chuck – Spectrograph FSX-6 has been installed on MTSU campus and was operated for the first time. A square Jove array will be used initially. A bowtie LWA-style antenna array (one or two crosses) will then be built with a designsimilar to Jim B’s array.Doing a calibration on the FSX-6 spectrograph in switching mode.

Francisco – Finishing up on narrow band (20 MHz) polarimeter and two Jove receivers at home. This system is nearing completion. Rosemary hill installation of FSX spectrograph and TFD dual pol antenna coming next year.

Andy – operating FSX-3 instrument from home using Jove dual dipoles and 4 lambda cable – cutting cable loss in half.

All observers are urged to keep an engineering log and update their system drawings for the SUG site. Dave, Jim Brown, and Dick have been working on a system drawing format which will serve as a guide for others preparing SUG system diagrams. Whit will look into standard drawing symbols and best drawing program.

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 – Dave is preparing – with everyone’s help – the SUG InstrumentationCapabilities Document which will be shared with Baptiste and also Philippe Zarka who is coordinating ground based observations during the Juno mission. Spreadsheet sent to SUG members to complete station information

Speaking of JUNO – congratulations to Chuck and his LWA team in obtaining over 100 hours of observing time to support the JUNO mission.

SUG Science – no new discussion

RSS Versions in Use – Tom 2.2.25; Wes 2.1.20; Jim B 2.6.0 & 2.6.1; Dave 2.1.19 (DPS) & 2.1.20 (FS-200) & 2.2.25 (data review). 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. Jim Sky is working on several upgrades to RSS which will include the long lusted after correction array

Techno issues–Whit presented several ideas for “grounding a rack”. Use as short and as large a wire as possible - # 6 minimum. If multiple ground rods are tied in parallel they should be separated by the distance equal to the length of the rod.

Spectrograph Network–nothing new – possible start date in Jan 2016.

Spectrograph and SkyPipe Data Archiving – Jim Sky reportsnothing new regarding VESPA, PDS and VWO.

ISWI – Shing sent around a list of ISWI instruments and info on PIs. Looks like some funding is necessary and affiliation with a NASA center or university probably required. Not sure how to shoehorn SUG into this world.

Calibration –Chuck doing calibration on pol switched FSX-6S machine.

Polarization Switching– the campaign to modify the FSX series of spectrographs to switch alternate sweeps between RCP and LCP inputs is in progress.FSX-1Shas been shipped back to Wes..

Time Synchronized Spectrographs –nothing new

New SDR Developments –nothing new

Phase Plane – No news.

SummaryThoughts

The following section is an addition to the minutes of the SUG telecon. I have tried to summarize status of severalnear term and long range opportunities. Hopefully this will aid in bringing these activities and some outstanding issues into sharper focus.

1. In the relatively near term we have an opportunity to share data thru the French VESPA data archive. This project has been active since the SARA meeting of June 2014. Baptiste has developed file conversion routines to convert RSS data into CDF files so that they can be viewed by the wider scientific community. He has also expressed a willingness to host our data on the VESPA archive machines. Many details remain to be resolved. Is that where our spectro data should be archived? What about the Jove archive – will sending our spectro files to VESPA have a negative impact on the Jove archive? As far as I know we currently have no plans as to how data will be made available from participating SUG stations and transferred to VESPA. Who will participate? Is there a file conversion utility to convert CDF back into RSS so we can view our own archived files?

2. In addition to the data archiving opportunity in VESPA – there is the possibility of actually being recognized as a contributing entity to the network of ground stations being managed by Phillipe Zarka that is supporting JUNO. Our strategy in this regard is to complete the SUG Instrumentation Capabilities Document. If this document is shared with Zarka the result may be thatsome SUG stationswill participate as official JUNO support stations. (AJ4CO with its advanced capabilities has already been so recognized). If we are, or are not, recognized as part of the ground based JUNO network our spectro data can still be made available thru VESPA.

3. Jim Sky is working with the Planetary Data System (PDS) to provide Jove/SUG data to that archive which has strict standards of acceptance. Peer review of the data at some level is required which may mean that this process will not be in place in time for JUNO support – at least in the early months of the mission. These two archiving opportunities (VESPA and PDS) appear to have different standards of acceptance and may in fact have different software requirements. Is the software work Jim Sky is doing for PDS applicable to VESPA? How do we interface with these two archives with the minimum amount of work for individual SUG stations?

4. Shing has delivered a most important opportunity to SUG in the form of grant money that may result in the development of a network of up to 5 clusters of spectrograph stations with 5 stations in each cluster developed over 5 years. We anticipate that we will know how much funding will be available early next year and consequently how much of this concept can become reality.

During the last few SUG telecons we have begun discussing some tentative hardware goals – such as coverage up to 100 (or more practically 88) MHz and dual polarization spectral data. Station clusters may extend over 100 km ideally located along magnetic NS and EW lines. Existing FSX stations may become the core stations of these clusters but it is likely that SDR radios with extended frequency coverage such as the AirSpy will be used to augment our 15-30 MHz coverage.

Wideband dual polarization data retaining phase information is the most desirable solution but also the most expensive – certainly in terms of hardware and data storage. If desired, wecan make some order of magnitude estimates of cost for such capabilities.

The grant calls for an educational (STEM) component. Not sure if SUG can contribute to this but some discussion might be productive. Funds will be managed by Chuck at MTSU and may include some monies for upgrades to existing SUG stations. Pre planning to the extent possible before funding details are available could help speed things along when we really do get started. Looking at available archived spectro data in light of what we can do with it in terms of science or STEM may be productive.

Here again the SUG Instrumentation Capabilities Document will be important in planning the way forward.

While the SUG may face some challenges in terms of the ultimate use and archiving of our data, we are making good progress as we strive to make our data more scientifically useful.

We are getting good coverage of Jupiter storms by all SUG observers. Many observers are investing huge amounts of time and considerable funds to upgrade their stations. We are doing a good job in such technical areas asantenna development, polarization measurements, better timing, correction arrays, calibration, documentation, metadata and the vital software upgrades allowing us to take and share data.

As our data quality improves so will the opportunities to “do science”. Hopefully in the not too distant future we will see one or more peer reviewed science papers authored by members of the SUG.

RF 10 Nov 2015

Next SUG Telecon 8 Dec 2015 at 5:00pm EST (844)467-6272, 352297#