Chile Travel, December 1995

In December 1995 on Chajnantor, Geraldo Valladares, Norio Kaifu, Hernan Quintana, Tony Readhead, Paul Vanden Bout, Naomasa Nakai, and Junji Inatani pause for a photo in front of the ALMA operations base on Chajnantor for NRAO, a 20 foot (6 m) long ocean shipping container, still in place on the site. The container provided shelter for personnel and physical support for the instruments. It also had an array of solar panels (visible in back of the container) to supply electrical power, which could supply about 500 W continuously (24 VDC and 110 VAC 60 Hz), with sufficient reserve capacity to weather a storm of a few days. With ca. 2005 instrumentation, this system operated near capacity. Funding for site characterization ceased in 2005 but some equipment continued to operate, monitoring phase stability, until an errant bulldozer severed the interferometer cable in 2009. During their December 1995 trip, the group pictured here made multiple site visits, going to the "NRAO site," the "European site," and the "Japanese site." Photo taken by Angel Otarola

Papers of Paul A. Vanden Bout

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1995-12

NRAO/AUI/NSF

Millimeter Array (MMA) Series

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