ACHIEVEMENTS IN REPORTING PERIOD:

Accumulated hours/observations/etc. in 2009 through the e-VLBI session on 10-11dec:

                     TNA eligible     total EVN
   # hours              598.5          929.5
   # observations        66             94
   from # proposals      38             56

We received a target-of-opportunity proposal over the week-end, which may possibly observe by the end of the year (this would be TNA eligible).

For the following 12 months, one would expect similar numbers of eligible hours as we have seen in 2009. The 2009 eligible and total hours did exceed any single year from FP6:

                   2004    2005    2006    2007    2008   .   2009
  eligible hours   338.0   253.5   368.0   492.0   489.5  .   598.5
     total hours   667.5   646.0   541.5   670.5   746.0  .   929.5

The growing maturation of the e-VLBI observing capabilities accounts for a large amount of the increase in EVN hours over the past couple years. The contracted value per year in FP7 is 115, which we have easily met (actually, each of the three regular disk-based observing sessions individually met that target).

There have been 6 data-reduction visits so far (total of 46 days), made under 5 proposals. The project summary for each of these is on file here. We have received two heads-up for intended vists based on data from the Oct/Nov'09 EVN session, for which correlation is not yet done.

PROBLEMS/ISSUES:
We still don't have any project summaries beyond those from the experiments from which a data-reduction visit was made. Including the two expressed interests from the Oct/Nov'09 session, these would sum to 90 hours. Thus I still need to drum up some project summary submissions from the other projects.

FORWARD LOOK:
The EVN TNA should easily make its contracted hours each year, thus the payments going to the stations should be constant over individual years. I understand that the possibility exists for a redefinition of how the unit costs are calculated, perhaps going to a per-year basis. For the EVN TNA, the unit costs as completed by each participating station at the proposal stage were multiplied by a factor (⇐1) on the unit-cost form (block F) to make the result come out to a level pre-defined by the participants. In principle, per-year adjustments to the costs prior to block F would just lead to a corresponding variation in the percentage there, leaving the product unchanged.