The tenth biennial IVS Technical Operations Workshop (TOW) was held in May 2019 at MIT Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts. At this year’s workshop were more than 75 people representing 17 different countries.
The TOW is focused on hands-on training and problem resolution in VLBI operations, and is thus geared toward the technical staff members at operational and forthcoming VLBI stations. In addition to specific training sessions on Mark 6 operations, cryogenic system and receiver maintenance, antenna gain calibration, automated pointing models, station monitoring, and much more, this meeting allow station personnel to share notes, collaborate, and network with many people from other stations, the IVS Coordinating Center, and the correlation centers.
In addition to the main TOW workshop, this year’s events incorporated a new, dedicated VGOS correlation workshop. This 1.5-day workshop followed the TOW; attendees included VGOS correlator staff and other VLBI operations personnel. Workshop topics included an overview of the VGOS signal chain, an introduction to data processing, the correlation process itself, and current challenges and solutions to getting data to the correlators.
Photos by Dirk Behrend and Nancy Kotary. Additional event photos may be sent to ivs@mit.edu.