Message 3/504 Mike Garrett                        Oct 17, 2000 04:08:22 pm
+0200

Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 16:08:22 +0200 (MET DST)
X-Sender: mag@juw05
To: evntech@jb.man.ac.uk
Subject: EVNtech: "Final" TOG Agenda
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                              TOG Agenda

                            20 October 2000

The "final" agenda is shown below (but late items can be added - up to
tomorrow afternoon). A few more points have been added to the draft
circulated earlier. I hope people will read all the reports before the
meeting starts. If people wish to present a few overheads that help to
explain some of the technicalities, feel free.

I'd like to thank everyone who prepared reports. I think we reached a 95%
response level! For those of you who are drowning in these messages
most of the reports are (or will be) available on the Torun TOG web
page tomorrow:

              http://epsrv.astro.uni.torun.pl

More information from the Torun folks will follow w.r.t. travel/local
arrangements etc.                                                         
see you in Torun,

 Mike.


                            A G E N D A


 * Approval & additions to Agenda

 * Review of Action Items from last meeting

 * Purpose of this meeting (Garrett)

 * Current Reliability/Performance of the EVN (see report from Garrett)

 * ICN Programme

    - What developments are planned to improve reliability at the
      stations (see station reports)

    - Reports (Stations -*)

    - Network coordinator position (Garrett)

 *  China Upgrade

    - see report by Wunderlich,

     - see report by Himwich (about to be submitted)

    - current status of Urumqi (Ur Station -*)
      (no report as yet)

    - current status of Shanghai (Sh station -*)
      (see station report)

 *  Formatter Upgrade News (Smythe/Graham - *)

     - see report by Smythe & Graham

     - how best do stations implement this and in particular when ?

     - how does this affect the correlators (including Socorro)

 *  2-head Recording (Smythe/Graham/Himwich/Langevelde... - *)

    - see report by Smythe et al.

     - current status (incl station readiness)
     - what still needs to be done ?
     - first fringe tests @ 512 / 1 Gb/sec

 *  MkIV Decoder (Tucarri - *)

     - how do we proceed (see various reports by Tucarri, Burgess etc) ?
  *  VIV status

        - Noto (Tucarri -*)
        - Cambridge (Burgess -*)
        - Yebes (Vincente -*)
        - Torun (Borkowski? -*)

        - see station reports

        - adopting MkIV Formatter as the "EVN/Sched default"

 *  IF switchbox

    - report on initial investigations (see report by Graham *)
    - where do we go from here ? (ALL)
    - future S/X sessions involving Geo stations (including tape)


 *  Future FS Developments for Astronomy (Himwich/Mujunen/Graham/Burgess - *)

    - see report by Ed Himwich et al.

    - which of these developments has priority ?

    - how much manpower is involved ?

    - which projects do we share with the geodetic community ?

  *  Spare parts (Tucarri/people at MPI/Burgess)

    - who do stations contact when they are in trouble now ?
    - what spares should be have centrally ?
    - what spares should we all have locally ?
    - what do we have now ?

 *  Obsolete Parts (Burgess/Holland/Smythe - *)

    - see report by Burgess

 *  Amplitude Calibration

    - report on TPI proc test (Conway -*)

    - move to VLBA style Calibration transfer (see report by Garrett)


 *  Sched Developments (van Langevelde - *)

    - see report by van Langevelde

    - how much manpower is required ?

 *  Logistics (Gunn -*)

    - GPS
    _ expt logs
    - unique expt names (see report by Gunn)    
    - EVN status table

 *  RFI (?)

 *  Frequency Flexibility (Gabuzda/Garrington -*)

    - see report by Gauzda

 *  Tapes

    - Purchase of thin tape (see report by Parsley)

    - Recording tests (Parsley)

    - Stations wishing to move to thin-tape only ops (MAG/Stations)


 *  EVN in 2010

    - fibre developments, pilot expts (see report by Parsley)

    - off the shelf VLBI DAS (see report by Smythe)

 * General Reports

   - from the stations (see station reports)

   - from the correlators (see report by Parsley/van Langevelde)
    - Real-time Correlator Status (see report by Verkouter )

     - what manpower levels are required to make more progress ?

  There will be an opportunity to ask questions on station/correlator
  reports but no oral report unless requested.

 * Technical Operations Workshop 2001 (Himwich)

 * Does the TOG meet too often ? (Garrett)

 * AOB

------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Mike Garrett         (garrett@jive.nl & www.jive.nl/~mag)
          EVN Support Group
          _______    ________     Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe
         / /  _/ |  / / ____/     Postbus 2, 7990 AA Dwingeloo, NL.
    __  / // / | | / / __/        Phone (office): +31 (0)521 596511
   / /_/ // /  | |/ / /___        Mobile: +31 (0)621 201417
    ____/___/  |___/_____/        Fax: +31 (0)521 597332

 "Donald Dewar's death has left an aching void in the hearts of his
  friends and the whole of Scotland. The country has lost one of its
  finest politicians this century and Scottish life is diminished as a
  result. It will be a long time before we see his like again."

  - Menzies Campbell's tribute to the First Minister for  Scotland,
    DONALD DEWAR (1937-2000).