19th IVS Directing Board meeting
Summary notes
Held at Institute of Applied Astronomy RAS,
        St. Petersburg, Russia
March 7-8, 2008
Notes by DB, first version 080524,080613,080902

Attending: Arthur Niell, Chopo Ma, Oleg Titov,
Kerry Kingham, Bill Petrachenko, Harald Schuh,
Patrick Charlot, Alan Whitney, Hayo Hase, Axel
Nothnagel, Xiuzhong Zhang, Andrey Finkelstein,
Dirk Behrend

Guests: Shigeru Matsuzaka (as observer for
        Yoshihiro Fukuzaki), John Gipson (for
        the duration of WG4 report)


ACTIONS:


1. Welcome (Harald Schuh)

Yoshihiro Fukuzaki, Ed Himwich, and Ray Norris were excused.
Shigeru Matsuzaka participated as observer for Yoshihiro
Fukuzaki.


2. Approval of notes of the 18th DB meeting (Harald Schuh)

The minutes of the 18th DB meeting were approved. The agenda
for the 19th DB meeting was approved without changes.


3. Situation of DB membership (Shigeru Matsuzaka, Dirk Behrend)

The Board stated that it is important that all members are present
in person and therefore each member should make every effort to 
come to a board meeting.

The Board decided to augment the Terms of Reference with a passage
stating that if a member of the board is unable to fulfill his/her
elected position, the board should appoint a substitute person to
fill the position until the next official elections, which need not
coincide with the end of the actual term. The position will then be
re-elected for a full term. Dirk will prepare the changed wording for
the ToR.


4. Summary of IVS GM2008 and other meetings held in St. Petersburg

The meeting was considered an overall success with a high
participation (about 120 participants) and a high quality.
The proceedings shall be printed through IAA, the editing of
the proceedings is to be done with GSFC.

For the next General Meeting it will be considered to go to
four days in order to avoid a too dense program and too long
days. It should be ensured that the GM remains open for young
scientists to give oral presentations.


5. IVS WG4 ‘VLBI Data Structures’ report (John Gipson)

A first open face-to-face meeting took place after the first day of
the General Meeting. There was consensus to strive for some sort of
Virtual Observatory. John will prepare a strawman proposal and send
it to the e-mail exploder.

It is planned to hold monthly teleconferences. Further face-to-face
meetings are anticipated as splinter meetings of the fall AGU meeting
in San Francisco and the EVGA meeting in Bordeaux. The next report
to the Board will be given at the Bordeaux meeting. The design shall
be finished by the GM2010 in Hobart. The  implementation will require
institutional support. 


6. IVS DB Chair’s report (Harald Schuh)

Activities since the last board meeting were reported.

Correspondence:
- Letter to Andrey Finkelstein confirming Badary Observatory as
  IVS Network Station.
- Letters to the six contributing ACs for weekly TROPO products;
  combination work was resumed in Feb 2008.

Meetings:
- Participation at the GGOS Unified Analysis Workshop in Monterey,
  CA, USA (Dec. 5-7, 2007) together with 5 IVS analysis experts.
- GGOS Steering Committee Meeting (Dec. 13, 2007) as new Deputy
  IVS Representative

Presentations:
- Talk on the new VLBI system presented at the GGOS Workshop
  during the 2007 International Geohazards Week in Frascati,
  Italy (Nov. 5-6, 2007); talk given by Johannes Boehm
- Oral presentations about IVS in Warsaw and Olsztyn, Poland
- Oral presentation about IVS in Ankara, Turkey

Publications:
- Prepared together with Dirk Behrend the IVS Description for
  the IAG Geodesist’s Handbook 2007-2011


7. IVS CC Director’s report (Dirk Behrend)

Activities since the last board meeting were:
- Publication of December Newsletter
- Publication of 2007 Annual Report under way
- Maintenance of mailing lists and Web site.
- Coordination of the fifth General Meeting (GM2008)
- Liaison with other services in the frame of GGOS and FAGS

The server computer for ivscc (Web and Mailing lists platform)
was upgraded from an HP machine to a Linux PC at the end of
2007. The upgrade resolved issues that have developped due to
limited computing resources (e.g., delayed throughput of
exploder list messages).

Wettzell's participation in the International VLBI observations
for SELENE was coordinated with the IVS observing plan.

The Directing Board agreed on changing the citation reference
from the Advances in Space Research publication (2002) to the
Journal of Geodesy (2007), special issue on VLBI publication.

Activities for the next several months include:
- Publication of April 2008 and August 2008 Newsletters.
- Publication of 2007 Annual Report.
- Publication of the 2008 General Meeting proceedings.
- Continue SELENE support.
- Continued participation in GGOS and FAGS activities.
- Coordinate next Directing Board meeting.


8. Items related to IAG, IAU, FAGS, related VLBI groups (EVN, ...)
   including discussion

8.1 IAG 

8.1.1 IAG Newsletter contributions (Dirk Behrend)

The 2008 General Meeting was announced in the IAG Newsletter. Dirk
plans to submit an article about CONT08 in the April issue.

8.1.2 IAG Commission 1  (Chopo Ma, Harald Schuh)

IAG Working Group WG 1.4.2 "Realization of Celestial Reference Frames
(CRF) and Transformations" was established. The IAG WG is chaired by
C. Ma and augments the corresponding WGs on the ICRF2 of the IAU and
of IERS/IVS.

Structure of Commission 1 for the time period 2007-2011:
- Commission 1 (President: Zuheir Altamimi)
- Subcommissions:
  SC 1.1 Coordination of Space Techniques (President: Markus Rothacher)
  SC 1.2 Global Reference Frames (President: Claude Boucher)
  SC 1.3 Regional Reference Frames (President: Joao Torres)
  SC 1.4 Interaction of Celestial and Terrestrial Reference Frames
         (President: Harald Schuh)
- Working Groups of Subcommission 1.4:
  WG 1.4.1 Theoretical Aspects of the Celestial Reference System and
           Systematic Effects in the CRF Determination (chair: 
           Zinovy Malkin)
  WG 1.4.2 Realization of Celestial Reference Frames (CRF) and
           Transformations (chair: Chopo Ma)
  WG 1.4.3 Interaction of Celestial and Terrestrial Reference Frames
           (chair: Sebastien Lambert)

8.2 IERS (Chopo Ma, Axel Nothnagel)

The ITRF2005 scale is defined solely by VLBI; SLR uses a different
scale. A new procedure was employed to determine the ITRF2005: stacking
of daily solutions from the various techniques. The two combination
Centers (IGN France, DGFI Munich) had differing solutions.

The IVS had a problem because the effect of pole tide was not treated
according to IERS Conventions by several of the IVS Analysis Centers;
this accounted for around half of the scale difference. The scale
difference was not as severe as the change in the z-component of the
geocenter.

The IERS Terms of Reference have been changed: the passage "renewable once"
was removed from the four-year term for the product centers.

8.3 GGOS (Chopo Ma, Dirk Behrend, Harald Schuh)

The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) became a permanent component
of the IAG. It is still in its formative stage though. 

There will be a Retreat in Italy with about 25 participants. Calls for new
components of GGOS (e.g., Coordination Office) will be prepared. The interaction
between geometry and gravity needs to be strengthened; this has relevance, for
instance, for the height frame which is currently not well coordinated.

8.4 EVGA (Axel Nothnagel)

There is an EVGA meeting every two years, interleaved with the IVS General
Meeting. The next meeting will be in Bordeaux, France in spring 2009 [now
fixed to March 24-25, 2009].

8.5 IAU (Patrick Charlot)

The Proceedings of scientific meetings (e.g., JD16) at IAU XXVI General
Assembly (Prague, 14-25 August 2006) were published in Highlights of
Astronomy (Vol. 14, online since Dec. 2007).

The Proceedings of IAU Symp. 248 “A Giant Step: from Milli- to Microarsecond
Astrometry” (October 15-19, 2007, Shanghai) will be published soon by Cambridge
University Press.

There is a proposal by S. Klioner for an IAU Symp. on “Relativity in fundamental
Astronomy: Dynamics, Reference Frame, and Data Analysis”, 27 April – May 1, 2009
in Washington, DC. The IAU Executive Committee will decide on the proposal in
June 2008.

2009 has been officially proclaimed “The International Year of Astronomy” by
the United Nations. The IVS should contribute to the activity and the OPC was
tasked with organizing a "supersession" with as many stations as possible to
observe an astrometry session in 2009.

The Journees 2008 will take place in Dresden, Germany on September 22-26, 2008.

8.6 FAGS (Dirk Behrend)

A FAGS Directors' Meeting is scheduled for April 24, 2008 at Paris Observatory.
The direcotors are also invited to attend the FAGS Council meeting at ICSU on
April 22-23, 2008 as observers.

8.7 EVN (Patrick Charlot)

Meetings:
- last EVN CBD+JIVE Board+RadioNet Board+TOG held in Madrid/Yebes on 13-15 Nov. 2007
- next EVN CBD+JIVE Board to be held in Bordeaux on 24-25 April 2008.
- next EVN Symposium: Bologna, during the week of 22-27 September 2008

Techniques:
- Yebes coming online: participate in K band observations during EVN session
  probably in June 2008
- JIVE is close to be able to use Mark 5B

The EVN2015 Document (about 90 pages) is completed but not yet released.

Target of Opportunity (ToO) policy was made public on the EVN Web pages


9. Reports of the Coordinators, WG and Committee Chairs

9.1 Observing Program Committee Chair extended report (Dirk Behrend)

The purpose of the OPC is to: review and approve the IVS annual observing
program, review proposals for observing time that use IVS resources,
monitor observing program performance and resource usage, and provide
advice and recommendations to the Coordinating Center as needed. There
are 10 members of the OPC who meet monthly to discuss issues related to
these purposes.

Issues discussed in the period since the last board meeting were:
- 2008 planning: The observing plan is mostly media and station time
  driven. From 2006 to 2008 the media storage requirement for the entire
  observing year increased from about 1060 TB to about 1325 TB. This is
  largely attributable to the rapid-turnaround sessions (R1 and R4) with
  larger networks at a higher data rate. 2008 basically carries forward
  the 2007 plan.
- 2008 R&D sessions: check-out of 512 Mbps recording mode for CONT08 and
  observation of high redshift radio sources.
- CONT08: The continuous VLBI campaign 2008 (CONT08) was fixed to the
  observation period of August 12-26, 2008 and will be observed in 0-24
  UT days. The CONT08 network will consist of 11 stations: HartRAO, Kokee
  Park, Ny-Alesund, Medicina, Onsala, Svetloe, TIGO, Tsukuba, Westford,
  Wettzell, and Zelenchukskaya. The observing rate will be 512 Mbps.

There are currently three 1-hour Intensive sessions:
- Int1: Mon-Fri on the baseline Kokee-Wettzell, correlated at Washington
- Int2: Sat-Sun on the baseline Tsukuba-Wettzell, correlated at Tsukuba,
  all data e-transferred
- Int3: Mon on the small network NyAlesund-Tsukuba-Wettzell, correlated at
  Bonn, all data e-transferred
Ultra-rapid Intensive session tests were performed between Europe (Onsala,
Metsahovi) and Japan (Tsukuba, Kashima).

Reducing the latency for the Intensive results significantly decreases the
uncertainty in the extrapolated UT1 value. This is a strong endorsement to
get all Intensive stations and correlators connected to high-speed networks.

There is pressure from the other space geodetic techniques and combination
analysts to go to harmonized session start times, preferably to 0-24 UT
observing.

9.2 Analysis Coordinator’s short report (Axel Nothnagel)

Paris Observatory started with regular submissions of solutions as Analysis
Center.

In order to strengthen the ITRF and stablize the networks, the Japanese VERA
and GARNET stations (Japanese domestic network) should be integrated into
the IVS observing program. Also the domestic sessions of the Russian QUASAR
network should be included.

Axel prepared initial wordings for calls for proposals for IVS Combination
Centers and IVS Analysis Centers.

9.3 Network Coordinator’s short report (Ed Himwich, presented by Dirk Behrend)

Station status:
- Special configurations no longer needed:
  - Fortaleza now has Mark IV VCs, mixed BW no longer needed
  - Seshan has 6 BBCs and an IFD on loan, which makes rack complete
- No tape stations left: 
  - Simeiz has Mark 5A and will have a Mark 5B
  - Parkes has Mark 5B
- “Upper X band” problem:
  - Fortaleza, Matera, Zelenchukskaya, (Seshan)
  - Cause unclear, may be more than one
  - TIGO problem likely cleared with new LNA
- GGAO not being used for routine operations, just testing VLBI2010

Items from correlator reports:
- correlators are now reporting lots of 
  - spur information, treatment is not uniform (sometimes channels are
    deleted, sometimes manual phase cal is used)
- phase cal amplitude and phase jumps: some of the amplitude changes are
  Tsys related
- no reports from Haystack correlations, although most sessions have been
  processed
- sometimes too many channels have to be deleted at S-band, ruining
  ambiguity resolution on some baselines

Based on 135 sessions (out of 170 sessions), the 2007 data loss expressed
in observing time amounted to 11.1%. This compares to 13.6% for 2006 and
13.9% for 2005. The results for 2007 are slightly better than the last few
years despite some significant antenna and receiver problems during the year.
In comparison, the CONT05 campaign had a data loss of only 4.0%.

9.4 Technology Coordinator’s short report (Alan Whitney)

The scorecard of antenna/correlator connectivity showed a very heterogenous
picture with connection speeds ranging from 2 Mbps to 10 Gbps. The list is
increasing. Recently Effelsberg, Germany was connected at a rate of 1 Gbps.

The VLBA is developing a software correlator in the next year which is
meant to replace the currently used hardware correlator.

International e-VLBI workshops;
- The last workshop at MPIfR Bonn on September 17-18, 2007 was well attended
  and had a high quality.
- The next workshop is to be held in Shanghai, China on June 16-17, 2008. The
  First Announcement was just released.

9.5 VLBI2010 Committee chair short report (Bill Petrachenko)

Work on the broadband delay prototyping and the simulators continued. The 
simulators include a source structure simulator and Monte Carlo simulators
to investigate how close we are to the 1 mm goal. A slew rate study was
undertaken and at the face-to-face meeting during the General Meeting week
the speeds were specified as 7.5 deg/sec in azimuth and 2.5 deg/sec in
elevation (likely).

Andrea Pany, Joerg Wresnik, Tobias Nilsson, and Arnaud Collioud were
proposed to be included in the VLBI2010 Committee, which was approved
by the Board.

An initial draft of the Interim Report was prepared and distributed to
the Board shortly before the General Meeting.

9.6 Joint WG IERS/IVS/IAG on the next ICRF, short report (Chopo Ma)

There were two WG meetings after the last Board meeting: one in conjunction
with the Journees 2007 in Paris and the other during the General Meeting
in St. Petersburg. The final product needs to be ready by the 27th IAU 
General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in August 2009.


10. New IVS Components (Harald Schuh, Hayo Hase, Axel Nothnagel)

The proposal of Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) to become
a member organization of IVS was unanimously approved.

Hayo suggested to take a proactive approach to promoting the funding of
new VLBI stations/sites, especially in view of VLBI2010. Hayo and Harald
will prepare a draft list of funding agencies that are good candidates.

There are several groups in the world that do VLBI analysis outside of
IVS and would be good candidates for becoming an IVS Analysis Centers
(e.g., Bratislava). 


11. Call for Combination Centers and new Operational Analysis Centers
    (Axel Nothnagel, Harald Schuh)

It was consensus in the Board that Combination Centers be created and
that calls for Combination Centers and Analysis Centers be issued. Axel,
Harald, and Dirk will work on the preparation of the calls and send
them to the community in about two months. The incoming proposals should
be reviewed at the next Board meeting.


12. Meetings 

12.1 Recent Meetings in 2007/2008

covered in 4. and 9.4

12.2 GGOS Unified Analysis Workshop (Arthur Niell, Axel Nothnagel,
     Harald Schuh)

The GGOS UAW was held in Monterey, CA, USA in the week before the AGU
Fall Meeting. The outcome was a list of action items (AI, about 30) with
person and deadline. The full list is available on the IERS Web site at
http://www.iers.org/documents/workshop2008/presentations/UAW_Action_Items_Status_Apr08.pdf

12.3 Next Directing Board meeting (Harald Schuh)

The next Board meeting will take place in Penticton, BC, Canada on
September 13, 2008. The spring 2009 Board meeting will be held in
conjunction with the EVGA meeting in Bordeaux, France. 


13. Next IVS Directing Board elections (Dirk Behrend)

The Board nominated the Election Committee for the winter 2008/2009
elections. The committee consists of Alan Whitney (chair), Hayo Hase,
and Dirk Behrend.


14. Miscellaneous

Wolfgang Schlueter is the IVS representative to CRAF. He can only
continue this commitment until September, when he will be retiring.
Hayo agreed personally on becoming the IVS representative to CRAF.
Hayo will ask BKG management for approval to take over this task.

Harald suggested to form an informal group to support Hayo in technical
questions regarding frequency protection. This needs to be discussed
further, once Hayo's commitment is confirmed by BKG management.


Next board meeting: September 13, 2008 in Penticton, BC, Canada