Computer is back

Well everybody hope your added day to break is going well, just wanted to get the message out to everybody that our DOS computer has come in!! yay! Jack says it was working for him but i cannot get it working back at school. So i am going to email Jack over break to get some instructions on how to set it up and hopfully get it all together and working the week we get back. Also over break i will be ordering the com port card for the PC so when we do get everything up we dont have to decide if we want to use the back end or the motors =). Thats all for now noting much will be going on untill we get back from break so go over and take a look at our fourms at: gpratz.proboards105.com other than that this will continue to be updatd durring break as i hear from Jack and get parts in. So keep checking back, but for now that is all. Have a great Christmas and a Happy new year.

Christmas Party!

Well we had a great Christmas party! Thanks to everybody who brought food it was amazing. This years gift exchange was amazing!!! there were many great gifts and some great stealing going on. As always many story's were told. overall the party was a great success. thank you all for coming and hope to see you all next year.
Also to the current members there will be no meeting this Thursday due to Christmas. and hopefully when we get back we will be able to test everything one last time all together in the control room and take it up to the telescope ASAP. That's all for now thanks for a great party everybody!

New Equipment!! WOO!!

Our new parts have arrived!!!!!!! We now have all of our telescope parts working other than the DOS computer (jack still has it). Other than getting the DOS compute back we need another com port on the PC because the new back end uses one to interface with the computer. Once we get the com port card and computer back we can do one final test before we take it up on the roof. Also at the last meeting we got the noise source working AKA the calibration source. now once we get everything up on the roof and hooked up we will have a calibration source and a entirely working telescope! if we can figure everything out we will be able to control the whole telescope even the cal source from the control room.
Also the Christmas party will be at my (Bartos') house this year on Saturday December 20th 2008!! Next week is the sign up for bringing food to the party so don't miss the meeting next Thursday!

Much work done!

Hey there! sorry its been a wile since the last update, I have just been spending so much time working on the telescope there is not much time to get around to this.
This has been the most productive 3 weeks in a wile! I have been staying almost every day after school to get the telescope working. So we will start from the death of the original DOS computer. this happened the night Jack came to help us get it all working. after about 2 weeks we finally got a new computer to run DOS on. Once we got the computer we spent the last meeting getting the DOS and the XP computer to talk, after hours of work we got it to connect!!!! OK! no that we have computers taken care of lets move on to the motors. 2 weeks ago my Dad or if you were at the meeting my "cat" helped us get the motors working great! So up to this point we have the 2 computers talking to each other and the motors working great! the next problem we are working on is getting a program called TINY to work. this program will allow us to view and control the DOS computer from the control room XP computer. so far in the search to get this program working and help for DOS my personal computer at my house has gotten a virus!!! :( there is a possibility that the program called TINY could have been what gave me the virus. (i don't think so) but it could be so lets hope that the control room computer didn't get a virus. Well thats everything i have done so far I think. If not post a comment! OH also! We now have a podcast!! It is available on the iTunes music store for free, search for GP RATz Podcast or go to www.gpratz.mypodcast.com!!! there really isn't anything up yet but I'm planning on getting it up on Thursday or Friday!! so take a look!!!!

And thats it,
E. Bartos, Tech Guy.

Big work night!

Today at our first major work day we made many improvements on the telescope!! We had 2 teams of people working on our different projects. They all went down without any real problems (thankfully) but the project my team was working on was a pain to do. The projects were: 1)Cut and paint the new front end supports. 2) straighten the front end posts attached to the hub. 3) check the cable running from the front end to the back end (incomplete). and 4) rig the astrocam up to look at the telescope to see where the telescope is pointing (in progress). 2 of the 4 projects were successfully completed they were cutting and painting the the supports, and straightening the front end post attached to the hub. One of the projects is still under construction and that is the astrocam project.
The project the team on the roof was working on was the most difficult to complete due to all of the support arms in the hub. The second team was in the science building working on cutting and drilling of the new support arms for the front end, it was an upgrade from our very very rusty supports. Thanks to everybody that spent there time this Friday night to help work on the telescope and get all this major work done so once we get all the parts back into the telescope it will be ready to go!

That's all for now, but keep checking back for more information. also new members, do not forget to turn in the sheets that will allow you to work and the emergency form. And for old members who haven't turned in the updated EMS sheet do that ASAP!!
Thanks,
E. Bartos, Tech Guy.

Welcome New Members!!

Hello all new members! We have news on the RATZ elections!! The new president and vice president have been chosen......the winners: President: Dailey And Vice President: Bartos! In other news we had a good turn out at the new members meeting. If you are a new member and missed the fact that we are having our first real meeting next FRIDAY. please turn you emergency forms in! if you don't you will NOT be able to work on Friday!!!

Current status of the telescope: Non-Operational. No motors are in the telescope and the front end is down.

Welcome!

Welcome Back to school everybody!! This is the start of the GP RATZ blog! For those of you who don't know we are the Grosse Pointe Radio Astronomy Team. We are the only group of students that built a radio telescope from scratch. if you are new to radio astronomy take a look at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's (NRAO) information on radio astronomy at: http://www.nrao.edu/whatisra/index.shtml also take a look around the site.
This will keep you informed of all the recent events in the club if you are in the club, this is really for you if you aren't in the club, but go to Grosse Pointe North or South High School you can come to the new members meeting, check the school announcements for more information.

That's all for now but take come back!! The blog will be updated Every Thursday, if not Thursday it will be on Friday.

That's all.
E. Bartos, Tech Guy.