Minutes of the LIS Section meeting held on 20^th August 2007.

Present: M. Aiba, G. Arduini, C. Carli, M. Chanel, A. Franchi, S. Gilardoni, M. Juchno, E. Métral, G. Rumolo, F. Zimmermann.

General information (G. Arduini)

The Staff Association is preparing a series of public meetings in the departments. The subjects will be: pensions, hospital costs in Geneva, long-term SLS, and the results of the MARS exercise.

A revision of the conditions for stand-by and shift work is being proposed. A compensation for the supervisors when they intervene outside working hours is proposed. This would be an official recognition of the expert support and should be extended to Fa and higher.

An He leak has been found during the cool-down of Sector 4-5. The cool-down has been stopped. A vacuum leak has been found in Sector 8-1. Implication for the planning are not yet known.

A Preliminary 2008 schedule for the injectors has been proposed by P. Collier. This would imply having LHC and Injector MDs grouped in blocks of a few days. Taken into account that the people involved in the machine studies for the Injectors and the LHC are very often the same it will be difficult to guarantee an adequate coverage and a good efficiency of the MDs. G. Arduini noted that this scheme was abandoned at the end of the 90s for the reason above mentioned, although the optimization of the running time for the LHC will have certainly the highest priority. G. Arduini noted that a scrubbing run is missing in the present plan and suggested that a possible way out could be to maximize the flexibility of the injectors in terms of controls and instrumentation in order to favour parallel vs. dedicated MDs. S. Gilardoni noted that MTE commissioning in the PS might require dedicated time. Feedback should be provided to E. Métral.

G. Arduini reminded that feedback should be provided concerning the beam intercepting devices in the PS-SPS Complex. So far only M. Chanel has replied. We should be careful in identifying objects that might be orphans or for which no clear responsible person has been identified.

The status of the tune measurement in the PS Complex has been discussed at the last APC (17/9/2007). M. Chanel will discuss with M. Gasior the observations at the PS Booster. Action: M. Chanel.

The ABP supervisors feel that Operations should be more concerned about the status of the Instrumentation and Controls and should contribute more to the debugging of the instrumentation and follow-up of its performance. G. Arduini will mention that at the next ABOC.

Discussions are ongoing for the BEAM07 programme.

Status of the machines

PSB and LEIR (M. Chanel)

The emittance of the Early Ion Beam could not be measured neither in LEIR (the BIPM is not working - V. Prieto and R. Sautier are working on that) nor in the transfer line from LEIR to PS (the pre-amplifiers of some channels are dead and require an intervention during the next machine stop). The SEM wires in the TT2 line could not be used either (timing problem?).

The intensity provided by LINAC3 was pretty low during the past week (17-18 muA instead of 22-25 muA). The losses in the PS at the beginning of the ramp are now reduced to 20-25 % as a result of the reduction of the attenuation of the signal provided by the radial loop.

The injection plateau for the Early Ion beam in LEIR is shorter than in 2006. Last year the injection plateau was increased in order to cope for the lower intensity provided by LINAC3.

LEIR is equipped with a digital RF low-level control. The system is working well and A. Findlay has acquired the expertise to deal with it so M. E. Angoletta is not the only expert. The RF signals should be available in OASIS and therefore in CCC by the end of the week.

The spectrum and network analyzers for the Schottky measurement in LEIR have been received. Installation will start soon.

M. Chanel noted that the tune measurement based on BBQ in LEIR can be used to measure the tune only at one timing in the cycle. The request was to have a continuous measurement every millisecond.

G. Arduini asked M. Chanel whether he has contacted the TS/SU people to organize the survey and re-alignment of the PS-Booster and to reserve some time during the PS-Booster commissioning with beam for the beam-based alignment. M. Chanel replied that he will do that.

PS (S. Gilardoni, Y. Papaphilippou)

The investigations on the Pole Face Windings power supplies are continuing. There is some hope that most of the HW problems will be fixed by the next PS dedicated MD. In that case the MD will be devoted to switch to 5-current mode of operation.

The CT extraction with the new QKE (in 25 and 73) will be set-up on Wednesday during the SPS Long MD. S. Gilardoni is in contact with M.Widorski for radiation measurements.

SPS & MDs (E. Métral - summaryMD , summarySPS)

Next meeting

Monday, 3^rd September 2007 at 09:00 in room 354-1-001

Preliminary agenda

General information (G. Arduini)

Status of Machine Studies (E. Métral)

Status of the machines (supervisors)

A.O.B.

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