Currently at Gran Sasso : Maurizio Goretti, Hunmoo Jeon, Erik Katsavounides,
----------------------- Sophia Kyriazapoulou, Paolo Saggese, Ashutosh
Sanzgiri (shift worker), Stefano Stalio.
Recent Departures : Doug Michael
-----------------
The first thing discussed was the calibrations. It was decided that the .CAL
& .TRK files (produced by a BMON job after calibration runs) which are used
in the production of calibration constants should be backed up. These files
occupy roughly 300,000 blocks per month and should fit onto a TA90 tape. The
first calibrator each month will be responsible for making a backup & VAX
copy of the files from the previous month.
Another aspect discussed was checking the quality of the calibrations
performed. Ash has modified some existing code from Kael Hanson which allows
one to look at TDC/ADC distributions on a box-by-box basis, ref. PMT ADC vs
laser atttenuator settings etc. The ntuple generated by the code could be
inspected to verify the quality of the calibrations.
An equipment inventory was made. The Le Croy digital scope is still in
repairs at Rome. For the HV system, there are 5 spare HV cards - out of which
3 are good and 2 have one bad channel each. Ash will work with Paolo on
fixing these problems. There is no functioning spare ERP supervisor. Doug has
taken a broken supervisor with him to send for repairs to Michigan. There is
one good spare WFD motherboard and one with a timing problem on one channel;
plenty of spare daughtercards (13 + 4 calibrated). Stefano has been doing an
inventory of the spare phototubes. All these tubes have been tested and
classified. He will update the PMT database file and write up a note on the
spare PMT situation.
Maurizio remade LUTs for the S. face after Kate fixed some constants in
the CALMOD database and loaded them on the 19th - the ERP rates on the
N/S face are recovering. Maurizio also performed LED/laser/FMT calibrations
on SM 1 & 2 on Wednesday.
Since December, it has been noticed that starting a run after rebooting
uVAX 1 gives VME WFD errors if the WFD crate is not power-cycled prior
to starting the run. Concurrently with the VME errors, the VME backplane
voltage was also seen to drop from -3 to -2 V. In an effort to cure this
problem, Maurizio and Ash swapped 3 high-current drawing WFD cards from
SM 1 with cards from SM 3, but the problem persisted. Paolo and Ash then
switched the VME backplane termination from active to passive, discovering
a bad jumper in the process. This seems to have cured the problem. This
Wednesday, we plan to replace the VMDIS/VBR8112 combo being used on the SM1
WFD crate with the VIC8250 (as is done on other supermodules) and check
that everything is still ok.
Erik, Hunmoo and Sophia debugged the program that fires LEDs for slow
monopole calibrations. Calibrations were performed this Wednesday on
SMs 1-4; Sophia is currently looking at the data. She has also written
some code for simulating the TOHM/LI response for a given input pulse.
Hunmoo will work further on the LED firing program for better slow monopole
simulation.
Erik reported on the performance of the MACRO DEAMON. The DEAMON has been in
operation since early December and has been performing admirably. From the
VAX allocated size of the run datafile, the DEAMON alerts shiftworkers
(and others on its mailing list) if the data rate increases/decreases beyond
a certain threshold or if the run is stalled. In association with the DISKSPY
operation it also warns if there is insufficient space on disk on VXMACA for
a couple of days of data.
Stefano is working on a memo on phototube gain setting. Erik is going to
write a detailed note on the calibration procedures. Paolo has straightened
the cable mess on SM 5/6 CSPAM. He has also made a nifty cable box
that converts the flat ribbon cable outputs from the fanouts to lemo. The
PMT signals from the fanouts look much better through this compared with
the older "octopus" cables. Maurizio is making twisted pair cables for the
LeCroy HV system control, to replace the flat ribbon cables currently being
used.
- Ashutosh Sanzgiri