Hi all,

   Anneila has put me in charge of organizing our joint
effort to look at configurations for 16-18 element and
8 element arrays on Upper Harkless. You all (Nick, Debbie, Lew,
and Mel) have volunteered, or been volunteered by your
fearless leaders, to participate. The timescale for
coming to conclusions about configurations is short.
The sooner we can agreed upon the overall pad layout,
the better. We should try to agree on final configurations
and pad locations by mid-June if possible.

   I produced a memo last July which can be a starting point.
It discusses a star layout for the pads with three scaled antenna 
configurations. These configurations, labeled D, C, and B, 
achieved resolutions of 6.3", 2.5", and 1" at nu=100 GHz. To 
these configurations, Debbie and Steve (?) added a large 
configuration, an A array, which conformed to the topographic 
constraints of the site. 

   Our current goal is to produce the proposed final pad layout and
array configurations for inclusion in the EIS.

   The first questions that we need to answer are:

1. Is the star pad layout "best" for the 16-18 element array or is 
   there a better choice? 

   I chose not to go with circular arrays for the reasons stated 
   in my memo. Dave Woody pointed out that the star-array tends to
   give a Gaussian shaped visibility density distribution in the
   u,v plane, whereas the MMA circular design tends to be more
   uniform. The Gaussian distribution tends to result in less ringing
   in the synthesized beam, arguably a small plus. In any case, would 
   anyone want to argue for a different pad layout? Do some modeling 
   so we can do comparisons?

2. Is the star layout workable for an 8 element array? If not
   what is a reasonable configuration? Would a Y layout utilizing
   only three arms of the proposed star be a good alternative?

   I plan to do some modeling of this and I encourage others to
   consider the options. The hope is that we can have a single
   pad layout to propose in the EIS, perhaps with the options of
   cutting off some arms if there are less telescopes.

3. Is the currently planned A array big enough? Too big? Is there 
   a sensible scenario for achieving longer baselines?

   Debbie, is there documentation for the A array that can be
   distributed?

Arguing about the exact antenna configurations, number of 
configurations, and the target resolutions for different
configurations can come next. Any additional points to
consider?

How should we proceed from here? I proposed that we work
independently for a little while and distribute our results.
I have set-up a webpage at Maryland (http:/www.astro.umd.edu/~lgm/CONFS/)
where I posted the July'97 memo and a copy of this email. If you 
have memos or information that should be distributed, email it to me 
and I'll put it on the webpage, and notify people of a new entry.

We'll see about organizing a phone conference around June 1-3, if
possible. Could everyone give me an idea if they will be available
by phone in the first week of June? Also will anyone be out of email 
contact for more than 1-3 day periods during the next 4 weeks?

Thanks,

Lee