GP RATZ

Its been a while...

2010-11-11T12:54:00.002-05:00

Well its really been a loooonnngg time since i posted on this blog!! argh i let it go too long now, so I will finally update it!!!

So far this year there has been a lot hapening.
Over the summer I (bartos) came across 2 huge compaq servers that are now set up to run a active direcotry, DNS, and File server. now we just need some internet so we can update the damn things.
Our first meeting was our old mebers only meeting, we voted on a president and came up with some new possitions. The results of the election were, President: Eric Bartos Vice President: Andrew (new position) Web master/programer: Mark.
after our election we had the new members meeting, it went like usual with dry ice root beer and a tour of the telescope and all of our rooms.
The next major mark in the year was reciving our new new LNA, replacing the one that got destroyed by rain last year. Along with the LNA came the new spectra cyber program that is like a million times better than the origonal one, but still not the best thing ive ever seen. this basically brings us up to this last week. last week was intresting, we fixed a few issues with the telescope. Along with that we put the front end up, and now we are waiting on a cable from jack so we can put the new LNA up. so this weeks jobs are to
A) get new guy wiers made and put up
B) configure the computer to allow remote desktop
C) put up the front end cable/LNA
D) clean up the RATz room
E) test and configure the motors with scope 2
F) test and configure the radio
G) ...SCAN?????????...

Welcome 2009 new members!

2009-09-22T23:47:00.003-04:00

Welcome Back to school everybody!! This is 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.
And for even more information you can check out our web site at gpratz.org and go join the forum over at forum.gpratz.org.

We have already chosen our officers this year. they are, President: Bartos, Co VP: Miller and Co VP: Bakowski.

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

Hope to see you all this thursday at the new members meeting

Cheers
E. Bartos, Tech Guy.

Project update #1

2009-09-03T21:40:00.002-04:00

Hello again! Its Thursday, and the first RATz meeting (returning members only) is in one week!!!
anyways, registration went good we had about 13 total people sign up. thats all thats new with the whole club, but the research project is getting along in the early stages nicely! Until yesterday i could not test the parts due to the fact that we being RATz are always doing things that involve COM/serial ports...well i dont have any of those, and until i got one i only knew that the kits would turn on and i could get a signal. Well now that i was able to get into school/the RATz room i haz a COM port! last night i ran the first 24 hour test with all the sensors connected to the master hub, so far i have found out that with the current power situation my temp/humidity sensor is a bit sketchy, meaning it is dropping out every time its capacitors run out of charge. this only happens because the current program i am using scans the channels on the master hub rather than leaving all of em on taking up major bandwidth that the network cannot handle. That just means i have to power cycle the hub every 2 min. Once i got past that problem, i got around to finding a good program that will work for just logging until we can actually get our real program written and find a programmer. Until we get the program made it will take a TON of work to manually remove all the spikes and equalize the curve of the temperature in the scan. For now we will just have to plan out, and work out the formula that the program will need to use, also figure out how the hell the logging program is saving the files so we can compare everything and try to get a general idea on how it should work and what elements we need to put into the program itself. We will also need to get a idea of how the Spectra Cyber works with the computer so we can actually make a decent interface to replace the current program and add in our own stuff. Tomorrow I am going to try to plan the first official meeting to get all our stuff together and all our ideas down on paper. so until then thats all!

Cheers
-Barts

Almost ready

2009-08-25T13:06:00.005-04:00

Well hello all! I actually have some news to report on this week even thou its not Thursday and school hasn't even started I (Eric) have been working hard preparing plans and new parts for this year! first i will start off with the new parts because that is always more interesting than plans.
As some of you might know Kara and I with the help of a programer will be working on a reserch project this year. It basically involves how weather conditions effect our dish. To start this project off we had to find a simple way to mesure temperature on both the front end and back end, as an added bonus to that the place that i orded the 2 temp sensors also happend to have a lighting detector, this comes into effect by showing what spikes on the scan are from lightning and what ones are from interferance. eventually all the sensors will be working together in a single program that takes data from the SpectraCyber (our back end) and the weather sensors, once all the data is in the program it will hopefully be able to get rid of any curves or spikes that match up with the curves or spikes of the weather sensors. The only thing I have to do with the sensors now is to do a actuall test of the lightning sensor this involves me getting a part from the RATz room and i doubt that will happen very soon. Once i do get the part all i have to do is set everything up again and test it on my computer. (this uses com ports and i don't have any). So once i get that all tested and know how it works it will probably be just about time to start school. well that was the parts now for the plans...err well whats left of the plans.
Well like always i have some plans that might never end up happening since im not gonna type the whole thing out again, you should go visit the NEW forum at http://gpratz.org/forum also if you are/ were in RATz i want you to join, its very boring in there right now we need some people to get the discussion going!!! so anyways its under telescope discussion and then "interferometer" err something like that. and yep you guessed it the plan is for a second telescope. now before you call me crazy take a look at the forum and see my points!! i have good reasons for us to have an interferometer. also i am thinking we should put it over at South, just because that would give us a nice distance and give the people over at south a reason to join RATz. As of now that idea is still kinda in the works i will let everybody know when i have a full plan for it.
Thats all for now, and remember to check out the new web site at gpratz.org
Cheers
-Bartos

Back at it already?

2009-07-30T23:23:00.003-04:00

Hello everybody! hope your summer has been going good!! well i just want you all to know that i will be back to updating this blog again, this year it will be MUCH more active! (at least i hope) but we have a much better web "community" going on this year. Now that everything is run by me and hosted by Site5 we can have a unblocked forum and many other new and improved services, well now you may be wondering...well ware is all this??? all of our interwebz stuff is located at gpratz.org there you can click any link to take you to all of our major online services. i have attempted to move this blog over to wordpress hosted by me but nothing turned out the way i wanted it to, so we are still having our blog over here, and that is the way its gonna stay because i LOVE blogger so simple! anyways, i could go on forever about our new interwebz, but i wont. all i need you to know is the forum is still under construction because we are now hosting it our self rather than on that shitty site we had it on before. (could anybody stand that site???) our new forum is at gpratz.org/forum all you have to do is register, just not yet. i will let you know over here when you can. so other than that nothing major has happend over the summer in RATz news. althogh i am gonna start doing some research on plan "002" some of you might know what im talking about but if you do DON'T TELL ANYBODY! i need to do work and finish the plan before i present it to the club. OH OH i just remembered! RATz now has a more official phone number thanks to google voice!!! this is the best number ever, but even better than the number is the fact that it will ring in the RATz room!! more to come on that, i can go on about that forever. the number is (313) 473-RATZ that is the best nuber ever!! anyways i have much more i can talk about with all our online shit but i have already gone on enough but one last thing is along with our new site and hosting we have email provided by google apps! (i fu**** love google) well other than that im not goin on any more. thats all for now, im actually gonna try to update this every Thursday even if we don't do anything and if we do stuff on other days i will post then too so yeah. that's all.
E. Bartos, Tech Guy.

THE GPT LIVES!!!!

2009-05-25T19:27:00.002-04:00

Well after a very long year of work on the motors and waiting for parts, we actually got everything working the way it should!!!!! We got everything up in to coffin 3 weeks after NRAO and it all works!!! as of now we can control the motors from the control room along with the NEW thats right NEW back end that is now all computer controlled. over the long weekend we for the first time let the telescop point at the sun's transit for the entier weeked without securing it....hope that was a good dicision. we also have been doing some week long scans for the past 2 weeks, now that produced alot of data files, but thanks to ulmer we now have a simple program to combine all the files. other than that we will have to take some of the stuff out of the coffin because unfortunatly this thursday is our last meeting. thats all for now!

Very Important News

2009-05-08T07:59:00.002-04:00

IT’S FINNALLY WORKING!!!!!!!! yes some time last night we got the telescope to do what we wanted it to do all along so the motors and the spectral line are working at the same time so... ya we might do some tweaking (probably shouldn’t), and some other tests to make sure that it works. We have not had first light yet but it might be soon!!!!!!

ratz stud finder!

2009-02-06T23:25:00.001-05:00

ratz stud finder!
Originally uploaded by djbartos93

yeah i did some fun photoshoping!!! i know its bad engrish!! but so what.

Movie Night

2009-02-06T18:29:00.004-05:00

We watched a movie called "The Right Stuff" a movie about the first 7 astronout show they were chosenand then went into space. That was all we did so don't ask if we actually did anything.... because we didn't. Next week we will get back to work so ...ya...till the next post

History of RATz Part 1

2009-02-01T18:56:00.002-05:00

As you can tell form the title we did the history of RATz part one this week along with some of the stories of the stars, so ya Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The RATz learn form history but yet some how we still manage to repeat it. Other than that no new updates.

programing???

2009-01-25T00:30:00.002-05:00

well as usual the telescope is still broke, but only the computer and when i say computer i mean the DOS computer with scope. (I HATE DOS!!). this time we think its a compatability issue with scope (the motor control program) and Tiny (the remote screen program) for some reason it has stoped scope from working right, we cannot get the motors to move at all!!! So I have this idea that some people! (ULMER) dont think will work...The idea is to make our own motor control box and system, along with a program for PC (windows XP) so we dont have to deal with the DOS computer anymore!!!! that would be amazing!!!!!!! but the problem is writing the program, this will not be simpe but we have the code for scope so we at least have a example. If you think you can write this program or want to give it a shot just be warned that it requers sending a output to a control box via a serial port and input from a com port, along with this it needs to work with starry night and look like a Mead LX200 telescope so we can control it with the computer. so if you still want to give it a go send me an email at gpradioastronomy@gmail.com or post a comment. thanks. thats all for now so take a look at the forums and all that good junk!!!!

IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

2009-01-10T02:34:00.001-05:00

Hello all i have taken the time to set up a chat room for us RATz old and new. you can get in the room by downloading a program called Xchat link below for PC and Mac. i also will be working on getting a web chat client up. but for now download the program.

Our Server is DALnet this can be found by going into the network list in the program listed above.

Our channel is #GPRATz to join you type /join #GPRATz if it asks you for a keyword it is ratzrule if not let me know. if your were wondering YES you have to type the / and the #don't forget!!!

Op's: my 3 nicks (fancy word for nickname) are all at the top they have a green dot next to them. i am only going to make a select few people op's SO DON'T COMPLAIN!!!! DEAL WITH IT!!!!

just a recap:
Server dalnet in client dal.net
Channel: #GPRATz
programs Xchat link after this
op's: Me and a select few others DON'T COMPLAIN!
keyword if asked ratzrule

LINKS!
WINDOWS http://www.silverex.org/download/ that takes you to the page, click the link next to latest installer!
MAC (OS X all) http://sourceforge.net/projects/xchataqua/ that is safe! no need to worry both are, just click the download and follow the steps, connect to the server and join our channel. See you all soon in the IRC

(you may have to copy/paste the link into your browser window)

RATz Canceled this Week

2009-01-08T11:02:00.005-05:00

This weeks meeting has been canceled, due to Band O' Rama, so no real updates for this week / nothing being accomplished, so the usual. There are some bugs with the DOS computer, either linking or with the program that is being used because there are a few programs that can’t be used because they don't run correctly. There are a couple of things that are going to be tried. Other than that nothing can really be done yet at the moment. So if you are free tonight, go and support all the RATz in the band.

Computer is back

2008-12-23T11:31:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-12-21T00:26:00.004-05:00

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!!

2008-12-12T08:37:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-11-12T20:31:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-09-19T22:04:00.005-04:00

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!!

2008-09-11T21:37:00.009-04:00

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!

2008-09-09T17:26:00.002-04:00

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.