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Gerhard Kronschnabl and Alexander Neidhardt - 24 Feb 2016
HartRAO
Current status: Some delays were experienced with the antenna manufacturing as well as the civil works, though not by too much. Final civil works are currently being completed in and around the site. The antenna should arrive around April 2017 and assembly is expected to take about 3 months.
The wooden formwork for the tower structure was not completed in time for concrete to be poured in December 2016. In South Africa, construction companies close for most of December and the first week of January hence work resumed around the first week of January with the last concrete being poured on 23 January 2017. Factory Acceptance Tests were also successfully concluded at CETC54 in China in January.
Photos from HartRAO VGOS site (10 February 2017)
Panel alignment is underway (last results were around 90 microns).
Commissioning tests are to be started in the beginning of August.
We have a live camera feed up and running (updated every minute) which can be accessed at: http://www.hartrao.ac.za/xxvgs_liveview.php
Photos from HartRAO VGOS site (14 July 2017)
Currently there is a camera installed on site, however there is no network connectivity yet. For updated videos and photos please visit:
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Philip Mey - 10 Feb 21 July 2017
Ishioka
- Operation of Ishioka antenna is now under interruption because of construction of operation building, and will resume after April.
- Modification of cryogenic dewar for QRFH system is being done.
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Jim Lovell - 26 May 2016
Kashima 34m
- We are working for exchanging replaced 1.6m dish with 2.4m Cassegrain optics of MARBLE1 station at NMIJ(Tsukuba) in March. Now we have two 2.4m dish at NICT(Koganei in Tokyo) and NMIJ( Tsukuba).
Marble1
(Tsukuba)Marble2
(Koganei)
- Broadband observation sessions conducted in 2016 were performed with 2048Msps-1bit-4ch mode. Frequency array was:
Lower_edge ( Center Freq)=
3188MHz(3700), 4788MHz(5300), 9588MHz(10100), 12788MHz(13300)
5388MHz(5900), 6588MHz(7100), 8188MHz(8700), 10088MHz(10600)
3288MHz(3800), 5388MHz(5900), 8188MHz(8700), 10088MHz(10600) - If any station can do broadband fringe test observation (1GHz bandwidth for single channel), we are pleased to be a counterpart of the experiment. We will make correlation and provide the results. Frequency array can be arranged flexibly.
pleased to be a counterpart of the experiment. We will make correlation and provide the results. Frequency array can be arranged flexibly. - Comments on Broadband Observation.
- Broadband Data acquisition has advantage in tolerance to RFI. It is preferable to be broadband at the stage on analog/digital conversion.
- I prepared a stuff on RFI for TOW meeting at Haystack. It tells our status of receiving signal and RFI conditions.
- URL: http://www2.nict.go.jp/sts/stmg/ivstdc/siryou/2017/IVS-TOW/RFI-TOW2017sekido.pdf
Mamoru Sekido - 26 AprMamoru Sekido - 23 Mar. 2017
Yebes
We are taking part in the biweekly 24 hour VGOS tests. For those observations we use 4 RDBE-G units, 500 MHz bandwidth each band and polarization. We do not plan to make any hardware update in the near term. Our next mid-term goal is installing a combination of filters that will filter out frequencies below 3 GHz but will allow the passage of the legacy S band. That should allow us to install two amplifiers per polarization and not saturate the optical fiber amplifiers.
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