Achievements in reporting period:

48th CRAF Meeting 14-15 May 2009 Observatoire de Paris, France
Agenda items: CRAF Spectrum Monitoring (R. Millenaar / P. Bolli),- also item 1.1.2 IUCAF Update (W. van Driel) ESF update (N. Williams) Continuation of CRAF Newsletter Amendments of Charter and Rules and Procedures Frequency manager report 2008, FM budget matters and contract with ASTRON Communications about CRAF and RadioNet, RadioNet Budget and travel support from RadioNet Presentation on the use of radio bands in meteorological application (P. Tristant) Reports from meetings (L. Alexe):

1. CEPT
2. ITU

CRAF attendance at forthcoming meetings Interference from Windmills (M. Lindquist) Galileo (A. Jessner, report by L. Alexe) 6.6 GHz use and chances of strengthening protection status (upgrading the allocation?) (A. Jessner) Destructive Interference, space and airborne rfi sources (A. Jessner) ENG (electronic news gathering equipment) (A. Jessner) Interference problems in Europe: Reports about developments since the last CRAF meeting (chair). Every member is asked to provide a structured report focusing on the following items: - EMI events - Changes of equipment and operations as listed on CRAF webpage. - Interaction with national administration

1. Amount of time and institute support available for spectrum management work

- Special knowledge of CRAF member useful for CRAF related work - Help and support needed by CRAF member

CRAF Newsletter (P. Thomasson) - contents of Newsletter 20 - time path for next issue

Radioastronomy and global change (C. Marqué) Exchange of views and ideas with EU commission and Reaction to current problems: A common policy for spectrum protection for European science services? (Ari Sorsaniemi ) Progress report on revision of Rec. RA.1513 (W. Baan) Iridium (A. Jessner) 1.1.2 Kickoff Meeting for the Spectrum Monitoring Part of WP5

       (extract from CRAF 48 minutes):

CRAF Spectrum Monitoring

Following both the action 08a and the FP7 Radionet support for a prototype spectrum monitoring system, BOLLI moderates the section entitled “CRAF Spectrum Monitoring”. In detail, the WP5 (Spectrum Management) has been funded in FP7 with 10 Keuro to develop a common RFI monitoring scheme for all the EU observatories. The main purposes are: • to harmonize the monitoring measurements • to coordinate common procedures in reporting interferences to the National Administrations • to realise a central repository across Europe.

Therefore, the WP5 will conduct a preliminary feasibility study for a common monitoring scheme (hardware and data format) for all European sites. The benefit of such implementation can be summarised in the sentence: “no proof of interference, no damage”. We now have the right to ask for protection only when some level of data loss is exceeded; a network of those RFI monitors will help to produce such evidence.

This CRAF meeting is addressed to be the kick-off meeting on this issue. Moreover, the RFI data base which is in the development phase according to action 08a can be included in the more general activity dealing with the CRAF spectrum monitoring.

This agenda item is structured in two main topics:

1. the first one offers a wide scenario about different hardware solutions installed in several EU radio observatories: BOLLI describes the Italian experience, C. Marquè (on behalf of MONSTEIN) the Callisto system, and finally van der Marel, the spectrum monitoring station in Westerbork. CRAF Members discuss about the technical features of each system, it is agreed that all those systems are interesting and the know-how already maturated around Europe is very promising. Especially, the Dutch experience seems to be the most advanced, in particular for the data acquisition and data processing. The task force is asked to identify during the next three years the protocol with the specifications that the common RFI spectrum system should fit.

2. As far as the RFI database, the last progresses are described by BOLLI (on behalf of S. Poppi, who is the Italian researcher actually involved in the software development of the data base). The data base is based on a MySQL engine, a powerful language for managing databases, being versatile, flexible, multi-user and open source. By now, the database can be accessed through web browers opening php pages, however other possible clients (as for example applications written in several programming languages as Java, c++, python, labview (LabSQL)) can be used. The test page for submitting data is available at the url: http://laser3.ca.astro.it/rfidb/submit.php, whereas the url for querying data is: http://laser3.ca.astro.it/rfidb/query.php. The current querying procedure allows to get data between a start and a stop date; however, more complex queries could be possible. During the following discussion on this issue, JESSNER suggests to add an upload button as further data input of the database. This can be useful for instance when pulses are received from various directions and with different individual strengths and frequencies.

All the presentations of this section are available in the CRAF FTP-site under the subdirectory /ftp/48th_craf_meeting. The task force who will face the CRAF Spectrum Monitoring is enriched with the experience of van der Marel (see also action 08a_rev2 for the update of this action).

A working group consisting of: CUPIDO, BOLLI, MONSTEIN, TIPLADY, RITAKARI, van der MAREL & JESSNER has been formed. The first task is the specification of requirements for the proposed prototype concerning frequency range (up to 18 GHz?), Sensitivity, LO-emission, survey density and data base matters. BOLLI is to head the working group and regular email / telecom exchanges (bi-monthly) are to happen.

1.2 Meetings attended – both meetings for NA organisation or meetings on behalf of RadioNet:

1.2.1 SE40 meeting Biel/Switzerland (27.-29.1.2009, Ch. Monstein)
1.2.2 RadioNet Kickoff meeting Shiphol (30.-31.3.2009, A. Jessner)
1.2.3 Public Sector Spectrum Management Conference in Brussels,-Talk given on ‘Natural Limits to Flexibility’ (21.-22.4.2009, A. Jessner)
1.2.4 48th CRAF meeting Paris, (14.-15.5.2009, 20 CRAF members + guests)

2. Problems / Issues
2.1 Issues - organisational, administrative or other problems foreseen
2.1.1 A deputy should be available to be able to authorize travel applications in case of the CRAF chairman being temporarily unavailable. CRAF asks RadioNet to allow the previous chair Roberto Ambrosini (INAF) to act on WP5 matters in such cases.
2.2 Red flags - major problems
2.2.1 The travel budget is insufficient to fund full costs of travel of CRAF members to CRAF meetings. A cap of EUR 500,- on individual applications has been introduced in order to stay within the allocated budget. This creates hardships for CRAF members from poorer countries (See detailed account for CRAF 48 below).

3. Forward Look
3.1 Plan for next years – 12 month outlook, more detail in first 6 month (including budget for each planned meeting/workshop)