Minutes 8th September 1999
Those present
A.Pedlar, J.Cohen, B. Anderson,J.Bell, P. Wilkinson, A. Lyne, B. Smith, P. Diamond
1. Report on URSI meeting PJD reported on SKA activity at URSI, Toronto. A SKA steering group had been set up consisting of delegates from USA, Canada, Holland, China & India. A UK delegate was also pencilled in. The next meeting of this group would be in Munich in March 2000. PJD reported that Jodrell's request to become a full member of the collaboration had been welcomed.
Harvey Butcher had reported on the 'Mega-Science Forum'. A working group had been set up to report on the feasibility of setting up a radio quiet zone.
PJD presented a draft SKA brochure produced by the AT group, and noted that comments on the brochure should be sent to Ron Ekers by the end of September.
The Berkeley SKA meeting, which had been scheduled for June 2000, had now been postponed until 2001. PJD had suggested that Jodrell host a small SKA meeting just before IAU2000. Russ Taylor and PJD would organise the meeting.
2. Memorandum of Agreement
AGL reported that a letter had been sent to Ron Ekers & Harvey Butcher summarising Jodrell's SKA interest and requesting that we became full members of the collaboration. A very positive reply had been received and it was likely that we would be able to sign up in a month or so.
3. Interference Mitigation.
BA presented a document summarising a number of methods of interference mitigation. This was primarily for current systems, although clearly they would be applicable for SKA. (The document is available on the Jodrell SKA webpage). A number of areas, ranging from digital filters to high temperature superconducting filters, required further investigation. some of this could be achieved via a suitable student, although ideally a PDRA/EO was required for this work. A number of possible funding sources for this research were discussed.
4. Fibre optics research
BS summarised three current areas of fibre optics research. These were the degradation of signal to noise, chromatic dispersion and difficulties in achieving coherent correlation from multiple telescopes over long fibre links. The chromatic dispersion problem could be solved via Bragg gratings & the other areas required further investigation.
5. Jodrell SKA webpage.
AP reported that he was setting up an SKA webpage for Jodrell, and that anyone with input should email him.
6. SKA meetings
Currently we were aware of 4 meetings involving SKA over the next year and it was felt important that at least one person from Jodrell and these. Obviously the August 2000 Jodrell meeting was not a problem. PNW was to attend the March 2000 Munich meeting, and AGL the December Pune meeting. RJC would try to attend the December 16th interference meeting in Sydney.
7. Date of Next Meeting
Wednesday 17th November at 2pm.