© Bernard Asabere, Lute van de Bult, Marco Drost, Menno Norden, Henk Mulder, Adriaan Renting
Day one we focused on the station reports, starting at the Dutch station maintenance and operations, then all the individual ILT stations. What challenges did everyone see with RFI, maintenance work, and ongoing development in Astron and at the sites. Creative fixes that had to be done, how certain problems (like fencing to keep the deer off the fields) were handled. But also the issues we had during the year like airco problems, shielding, and failing boards. New telescopes that were placed on site and how these were tested to make sure LOFAR does not see noise from those, and what repairs were needed to keep the telescope in the best shape possible.
Day two we go into the single station science and techniques, kicking off with LOFAR Science Operations status and plans. How did the last cycles perform, how many hours were observed, what projects ran, and what development we are currently working on. The international station owners present their science, new projects, and breakthroughs with the telescope and combinations of ILT stations. It is a chance to inspire each other, see who can assist in science projects and opportunities, and in a lot of cases, help with ideas on solving specific issues faced on site during the year.
Then, after a much-needed coffee break, we went into the status and planning for LOFAR2, with a live demo of the 3 LOFAR2 stations, the monitoring and control. How to do a state transition and how this looks in the monitoring. This gave us a chance to answer questions, discuss ideas, and brainstorm on how to do the rollout. A very productive two days, which gave us a lot of insight and discuss many great ideas for the coming period.