comment from chris tully, friday, july 25<br>

I agree completely with heeding this warning.  Key measurements that we want
to achieve this summer should be moved forward in the program.
For the JetMET group, the HB/HE/ECAL crack data is very important as is the
longitudinal leakage measurements into the HO.  The HO leakage is currently
off by an order of magnitude in OSCAR, and DC04 simulation will begin in late
summer. The run plan looks excellent, but it depends on the presence of beam.  
Given the warning about the beam, I think we should consider faster validation 
scans in the beginning, then crack and leakage measurements, and then return to 
more systematic high statistics scans.  Beam running is probably one of the most 
straightforward configurations.  Things like the source running should not be 
pushed forward until that is worked out.  Now we use the new DCC, so the HTR 
histrogramming has to be
changed to match the event formatting not present in the old DCC.  At the
very end of the HF running, there was jump to almost 2k/spill, but it still uses 
VME readout of the DCC.  The SLINK64 looopback hardware has been verified at both 
CERN and Princeton, but we still don't know when the control protocol from the 
DCC side will be worked out.<br>


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comment from Laza, thursday, july 24<br>

Gentlemen<br>

The warning I transmitted yesterday about a possible shutdown of SPS
has been confirmed: there will be no beam for at least a week, i.e.
till Friday August 1st, which probably means Monday August 4th at  
earliest.<br>

Reason: numerous vacuum leaks in TT20 extraction line. The last one is in
a very hot area where the dose rates are ~30 mSv/hr (annual allowed dose
at CERN is 15 mSv) and it requires some cooling before the intervention
can start. Given that after numerous interventions half of vaccuum group
technicians are already irradiated any future vacuum leaks in hot areas
would probably mean further long term beam losses.<br>

Briefly, due to the lack of maintenance of SPS caused by insufficient
funding, the efficiency of the beam delivered to the users this summer has
been steadily decreasing. As HF has been fighting with new and not well
understood electronics and readout, even their severely reduced program
has not been finished.<br>

Therefore, I would encourage reviewing the proposed August run plan
from the point of view of where we can count on only 50% of beam time
and being ready in case another disaster happens.<br>