2019 November
November 27
13:22 UT I thought I would enter some information from the past few days about events that have caused problems with normal observing. On Nov. 24 Gelu reset the ACC without telling anyone, and that caused us to miss the entire day. On Nov. 25 we had a partial day due to several issues. Ant 1 stopped tracking at one point, and then there was a gap due to the tunable LO not tuning (apparently it missed the fseq-on command). It was also extremely windy on this day (winds >50 mph!) so some calibrations were not successful. Then on Nov. 26 (yesterday) we got a partial day because the dpp hung and had to be rebooted. Wind was a problem in the afternoon, also. Finally, today and possibly for the next couple of days a winter snow storm is requiring a cessation of operations. Because this is the start of the Thanksgiving holiday, any problems may not get cleared through the (long) weekend, but we'll do our best.
November 29
04:02 UT The snow was not very much, so I went ahead and observed on Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving). The morning calibration was good, but they got progressively worse during the day as snow began to accumulate again. The dishes are no doubt snow-covered at this point. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, so it might melt. I will not start the observing until I can see the dishes (after the Sun comes up).
17:06 UT Quite a bit of snow yesterday, so I did not try to get any calibrations this morning. I got on the Sun slightly late, and then we had brightness scrams. I found ant 4 still tracking even though the others were scrammed, which is worrying. I stowed ant 4 for now. Also, ant 11 is not tracking. It is on a hard limit and after trying a reset I cannot get the crio back.
November 30
17:00 UT I ended up stopping the observations yesterday due to concern about solar brightness on the feed. The sunny conditions and cold temperatures on icy surfaces provide ideal conditions for burning up feeds. However, today I started observations normally (it is mostly cloudy). The forecast is for more snow in the wee hours of tomorrow, but for now all seems good. I also got Ant 11 tracking just now.