Minutes of DRAGON meeting of March 29, 2005

Present: CO, CV, DH (recorder), DO, LB, CR, JP, AO

1. Status and preparation for E1024 (40Ca(a,g)44Ti)

	* Ion Chamber electronics  (CV)
	the new ("Catania") pre-amps have been mounted inside the gas
	volume and cables have been re-routed to make the system now
	more or less noise-free.  The energy-equivalent of the noise
	will be established using an alpha source. [The Gd source used
	2 weeks ago has to be found.]  The new, inside connections
	will not allow pulser calibration via the Frisch grid.

	* Charge state booster (DO)
	the Mark II version, which attaches to the downstream pumping \
	tube, should be ready today or tomorrow (29th or 30th)

	* Turbo cooling   (DO)
	the plastic flow-control valve on the TP3 circuit was blocked
	by green gunk.  It has been cleaned out and the flow is again
	comparable to the other circuits.

	* XSLITC   (DH)
	since last Thursday we have not been able to command slit 
	motion via EPICS.  Jane Richards and Graham Waters are working
	on the problem.  When this is fixed it should be possible to
	document the problem of "Right slit stops upon Collision"
	which may have been responsible for the DRAGON measures of
	beam energy to be too high for some of the 20Ne(p,g) runs.

	* Software  (JP)
	a couple of bugs have been fixed.  A script was written to
	force initialization of VxWorks upon every StartDAQ or
	KillDAQ.  A procedure for entering calibrations of energy or
	time data is planned (CO/CR/JP).

	* Run plan update  (CV)
	We expect to have 40Ar++ beam in 2 days (Thursday) in order
	to allow an accelerator tune to be developed and an energy
	calibration of the IC to be done.  Next week begins the first
	40Ca(a,g) run.  Detailed run plan is in the attachment.
	Action item #1: prepare a thick mylar entrance window
	for the planned IC running at ~50 Torr.  (CO)

2. Other business
	None.