Australia Telescope National Facility

ATUC Extraordinary Meeting: Parkes Instrumentation

The Australia Telescope Users Committee (ATUC) meets regularly to discuss issues that affect users of the ATNF. An extraordinary ATUC meeting will be held 13 February 2012 at the ATNF headquarters in Marsfield, to discuss the proposed “rationalization” of the Parkes instrumentation suite, with the aim of reducing operational costs.

The strategy is likely to include the following aspects:

* A reduction in the frequency of receiver changes from October 2012;

* Options for decommissioning of some instrumentation beginning in October 2012, based on a balance between user requests, maintainability and compatibility with remote operations;

* Pursuit of capital funding for future receivers that provide broad capabilities but can be operated with the planned reduced level of support.

An open session will be held in the morning, followed by a closed session of the committee in the afternoon. All users are welcome to attend the Open Session, and to express opinions and make suggestions on this topic. An agenda for the Open Session will be made available on the ATUC web page closer to the meeting. ATNF will distribute a discussion document on the proposed changes early February 2012.

If you cannot attend the meeting, either in person or by teleconference, and you have issues that you want raised at the ATUC meeting, please contact any member of ATUC over the next few weeks.

Information on ATUC and how to contact its members can be found at: