Notes from South Pole TDRSS Relay (SPTR) Mtg/Telcon held on 8/12/97

Participants:  GSFC (530, NISN, Eng Team, Tom Buchanan)
               WSC (Richard Von Wolff)
               SP User Rep at GSFC (Troy Ames)


INTERNET CONNECTIVITY AT WSC

- NISN (Stan Rubin) explained the basic method by which prior arrangements
have been made to repair the WSC CISCO Internet routers. If a
problem/failure is suspected, the site would call the CISCO help desk, who
in turn would request certain diagnostics be performed to isolate the LRU
that has failed. The site would then arrange shipment of failed LRU ASAP to
CISCO, who in turn ships a serviceable replacement unit. WSC understands
this routine and has no problem complying with the established procedure.


SPTR STATUS REVIEW

- The SPTR Status Review will be on 8/21/97 (Thursday) at 1430 EDT in
B12/C206. Duration is expected to be 1 hour and will not be video
conferenced. A separate e-mail outlining the agenda and board participants
has been sent out.


ENGINEERING TEAM STATUS

- Separate e-mail from Kevin Culin has been sent out providing the current
detailed status.

- Logimetrics has gotten one of the KB TWTAs working now and is working on
the second bad one. The computer control interface for the TWTAs is
nonstandard and assistance from Logimetrics has been requested. A rough $1K
estimate was made to possibly provide a PLC to allow MCS control/status.

- New calculations show that a S-Band Rx Filter will be required for GOES
Tx interference at SP. A waveguide bandpass filter will be procured as soon
as a vendor can be determined (est. $500). The Pin Diode suggested by
Malabar will not be implemented under MCS control so the cycling of the
GOES Tx On/Off will not be pursued at this time.

- Hugh O'Donnell has found a couple of WG filters that can be used for the
SPTR K-Band Transmitter. The bandpass is 14.6-15.25 GHz for the 15.0034 GHz
Tx frequency. A measurement will be made at GSFC of the 2nd harmonic
rejection level and passes along when available for dark sector impact
assessment.

- The SP antenna mount to be fabricated is being worked with ASA.

- SPTR computer hardware non-availability is the pacing item holding up
progress right now.

- The MCS control/status interface to the SP satellite modems have been
completed now.

       -- The basic S/W design is to turn-on the SPTR Tx (SB & KB)
          20 secs after modem lock (SSAF) and not to turn them off
          until 2 mins after modem loss-of-lock.

       -- SP SPTR statistical information has been defined that will
          be made available to the MCS. The modem can provide byte
          transfer count information. Dave I. has worked out with
          Andre F. the SP fileserver info that will be passed to MCS.
          The MCS e-mail message capability is working now, to be
          used to send status to the remote GSFC SPTR web site.
          Dave will provide a demo to those interested of what he
          has done thus far in B25 on Thur (8/14) at 1400 EDT.

       -- The modem Rcvr has an Eb/No reading available to the MCS
          (threshold 5.5 dB to 9.9 dB max indication) to indicate
          SSAF link quality at SP. We may use this indication to
          align/point the SP S-Band ant at installation. Given the
          modem Eb/No range available and the anticipated margin
          (12 dB) this will require coordinating F1 SSAF service
          EIRP reduction at WSC (manual TCMD, PDA settings) to do
          the SP pointing alignment.

- Andre F. mentioned his design for the SP/WSC Fileservers will be to have
two basic types of accounts that users can established. A Read Only account
for anonymous FTP and pass worded accounts with Read and Write privileges.
There will be no individual account directory sizing imposed so when disk
space runs out it will affect all users at the same time.


SPTR DOCUMENTATION DISCUSSION

- The SPTR O&M document will be: Operations Interface Procedures Between
Network Control Center (NCC) and South Pole TDRSS Relay (SPTR). The Doc No.
is 532-OIP-NCC/SPTR.

       -- Appendices will be used to contain the specific M&O
          procedures applicable for both the SP and WSC.

       -- The software design description for the MCS and SPTR
          Fileservers will be provided once known (probably
          in November).

- An EC is being written for the SP installation by ATSC (Kevin Culin and
Mike Moran).

- An EC is being written by WSC (Erik Starman) to install the SPTR Local
Interface (LI) at STGT/WSGTU.

- A SPTR ICD will be written as a basis for the WSC LI EC. Caren Corbett
will initially provide the broiler plate to help define the contents
required which the GSFC SPTR Engineering team will then complete.

- A status review is scheduled for 8/21. Separate email to be sent w/agenda.