Events for 2008
Monthly ABQ Section Board Meetings
Board meetings are the last Wednesday of the month,
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
at
Yanni's Mediterranean Bar & Grill
3109 Central Avenue NE
268-9250
(free parking in the back)
2008 meeting dates:
January 30
February 27
March 26
April 30
May - no meeting
June 25
July 30
August 27
September 24
October 29
November 26
December - no meeting
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IEEE Joint Chapter
IEEE Albuquerque Computer Society
See also the GOLD page (Graduates of the Last Decade).
VLA Tour June 7
The IEEE Albuquerque Section announces a June 7 tour of the Very Large Array (VLA) radio astronomy observatory, located on US 60 west of Socorro. Dedicated in 1980, the VLA is one of the world's premier astronomical observatories. Dr. Peter Napier, who has served as an engineer and manager for the VLA for more than 30 years, and Clint Janes, who served as a division head for 12 years, will conduct the tour. The tour will start at noon on Saturday, June 7, and last approximately 2 hours.
The Visitor Center and gift store will be open, although no food is available. Driving distances are 75 miles to Socorro from Albuquerque and another 50 miles to the VLA from Socorro.
Also included in the tour will be a visit to the ALMA Test Facility, which is a prototype two-element interferometer test bed for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA is a 50 antenna array operating at frequencies up to 900 GHz that is currently in construction at an altitude of 16,500 ft. in Northern Chile.
Directions
The VLA Visitors Center is 50 miles west of Socorro on U.S. Highway 60. From U.S. 60, turn south on NM 52, then west on the VLA access road, which is well marked. Signs will point you to the Visitor Center. The IEEE tour will begin from the Visitor Center.
For more information and to RSVP, contact Clint Janes at cjanes@ieee.org.
Background
The VLA consists of 27 radio antennas, each 25 m in diameter, organized in a Y-shaped configuration. The signals from each of the antennas are correlated centrally to give the resolution of a single antenna 36km (22 miles) across, and the sensitivity of one dish 130 meters (422 feet) in diameter.
The observatory has been used to make key observations of black holes and protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way's center, probed the Universe's cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about the physical mechanisms that produce radio emission.
The Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) is an ongoing project to update the VLA with new state-of-the-art electronics and software. Scheduled for completion by 2012, the project will extend the frequency coverage and increase the sensitivity of the instrument by a factor of 10. See www.aoc.nrao.edu/evla.
The VLA is a facility of the National Science Foundation and is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
RSVP to cjanes@ieee.org.
IEEE Joint Chapter (AP/,
EMC/,
MTT/ and
NPS Society)
2008 meetings:
Unless otherwise noted, these are dinner meetings starting at the Four Hills Country Club, 911 Four Hills Road SE in Albuquerque. Social begins at 5:45 p.m. with dinner at 6:30 p.m. The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. No charge and no reservation required to attend just the talk. $20 per person for dinner (full-time students, $10), reservation required. Rsvp by e-mail to abq_joint_chapter-at-ieee-dot-org or phone Leland Bowen at (505) 867-2731. Click here for a preliminary PDF list of the 2008 events. The Joint Chapter will not have meetings in July and August.
June 19: Dr. Bernd H. Strassner, Sandia National Labs. Topic: "Wideband Planar Antennas used for Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging." Here is a PDF with information about the presentation.
May 29: Dr. John D. Cressler of Georgia Institute of Technology, will talk about "Radiation Effects in Silicon-Based Heterostructure Device Technologies." Here is a PDF with information about the presentation.
Reservations & cancellations accepted until noon Tuesday, May 27.
April 24: Jim Fish of Anasazi Fields Winery talked about "Unique Wines From a Unique Landscape" at a 5:45 p.m. social and technical event for members and guests at Four Hills Country Club. Here is a PDF with information about the presentation.
March 27: Antennas & Propagation Society Distinguished Lecturer John L. Volakis, ECE professor at Ohio State University, talked about "Anisotropic Media and Printed Circuits for Narrowband and Ultra-Wideband Antennas."
February 21: Dr. William Radasky, president of Metatech, addressed the topic "What Is Intentional Electromagnetic Interference and Why Should We Worry?" Here is complete information.
January 24, 2008: Dr. Lee J Rickard, Executive Project Director for the Long Wavelength Array radio astronomy observatory, talked about "A New Window on the Universe." Here is information about his topic.
The 2008 officers of the Joint Chapter are listed here.
Albuquerque Section General Meeting, Dec. 2007
The Albuquerque Section held a general meeting on Dec. 12, 2007, at Four Hills Country Club. Dr. Simon Barriga and Dr. Gilberto Zamora discussed modeling and simulation of "wicked-hard" problems using UMBRA. Click here for a PDF of the event abstract.
IEEE Albuquerque Computer Society
Summary 2007 Meeting:
July 24, 2007: The IEEE Albuquerque Computer Society held its first meeting on July 24 at Scalo's. The guest speaker was Mike Vahle, director of the System Mission Engineering Center at Sandia National Laboratories, who talked about high-performance computing, "A Partially Filled Promise." Society members also took nominations and voted on committee members.
Jan. 25, 2008, Topic: Neurosystems Engineering
Neurosystems engineering was the topic of a lecture and lunch on January 25 co-hosted for students by UNM, MIND, and the IEEE Albuquerque chapter of the Engineers in Medicine and Biology Society. The presentation, by Sandia National Labs' Dr. Gerold Yonas, was held at the MIND Institute on the UNM campus. Click here for a PDF describing the event.