CARA Telecon Minutes
Date: June 11, 2001 Time: 1:00 PM

Attendance:

BU:           T. Bania
Cornell:
CMU:
Northwestern: G. Novak
R.I.T:
S.A.O.:       T. Stark, A. Lane
South Pole:   C. Martin
Chicago:      J. Carlstrom, A. Harper, S. Meyer, N. Odalen
              R. Pernic, R. Landsberg, J. Bausch
UCB:          W. Holzapfel
UCSB:         J. Ruhl
FTS:          R. Chamberlin


  Agenda Items

Minutes from June 4, 2001 approved

News from the Pole:

Tau 1.3 at Pole.

Weather mediocre.  Telescopes working.  FTS currently warm and waiting
for good weather before cooling.  AST/RO 492 GHz running and doing
Galactic Center.

AST/RO - T. Stark is concerned with the spectral baseline ripple.
This ripple is getting in the way of perfect spectra.  Best guess is
that this ripple is related to reflections from around the chopper.

AST/RO group is getting back into writing papers after getting the
proposal out.

Acbar - Telescope working well for the last week.  Doing some
drift scans. Will finish with the observing strategy and should
start as early as tomorrow with following that strategy.

SPARO - paper should be coming out in 4-6 weeks.

DASI - is working better than last year.  Has already collected
more than half as much data as collected last year - no major
problems.


FTS - R. Chamberlin reported that the FTS uses 2.8 liters with a hold
time of 40 hours or about 12 liters per week with transfer loss
approximately 25 liters per week.  According to reports from G. Novak
the large storage dewar has a boil off rate of 20-40 liters per day.
The amount of helium used by the FTS would be about the
same as the boil off of the dewar in one day.

C. Martin confirmed that 25 liters per week is within the range of
actual helium used and it would not be more than 35 liters per week.
The helium used to fill the FTS has been taken from a 100 liter dewar.

R. Chamberlin is concerned that period of low tau may not last long
enough to get the instrument cold and start taking observations.

Data taken in the past showed that the best tau is during day 200-260 at Pole.

(Acbar averages less than 10 liters per day including transfer, maybe more.)

A. Harper noted that R. Chamberlin and C. Martin have made changes to
the software of the FTS.  A. Harper would like to see the FTS run to
check out any potential system problems.  This is important data and
we need to make sure the software is correct.

Helium Report:

J. Ruhl stated that the weight of the dewar came back validating the
readings of the pressure gauge -- 1200 gallons are left
in the dewar with a boil off rate of 28 liters per day.  G. Novak
reminded the group that we could not count on the last 500 gallons in
the dewar we should only make our estimate on 700 gallons being
available for use.  Therefore approximately 100 days are left without
any usage.

Call needs to be made in August or earlier on when to start
filling the smaller storage dewars.  It was noted that we are already
pulling from the 3000.)

Group needs to know impact on helium with AST/RO, FTS and Acbar/SPARO
being run.

*** G. Novak and J. Ruhl to work out Helium usage to help make
decision on what to do with FTS and SPARO/Acbar.

G. Novak offered to have Acbar run this season as we could loose as
much as a month in making the transfer to SPARO.

It was suggested that FTS run 1-2 weeks straight and get the best
data that they can.  J. Carlstrom concurred.

T. Stark stated that running the FTS for this long a cycle is hard on
the winterover, but R. Chamberlin assured the group that it should
not be a problem.  C. Martin concurred.

***C. Martin will cool the FTS when he has time and run.  R.
Chamberlin is to check the data.  C. Martin is to also to determine
the helium usage during this period.

*** Helium plan should be discussed at the next telecon.

Hobart Meeting:

Attending will be A. Harper, T. Bania, J. Jackson, J. Peterson and R.
Loewenstein.

J. Carlstrom expressed that CARA should go in and support the
Australians.  D. Peacock is scheduled to attend the conference and if
D. Peacock see chaos then NSF might back out.

Al reported that J. Storey stated that Australia submitted at 2 meter
IR proposal to their government and they might know the outcome before
the meeting.  If/when information is available, our group will need to
discuss the effect on AIRO and the best way to support Ausie at
confernce - must discuss this even if we do not know the outcome
of their proposal.

Australians are very much interested in working with us.

Polar Operations:

***Still need input from all group members on needs at Pole from
Polar Operations.

SPUC is meeting 2 weeks from today.