From: Steven Tingay
Subject: Meeting of Australian groups interested in SKA simulations
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 14:58:04 +1000 (EST)


Dear All,

As there are various groups within Australia starting to ramp up
efforts to simulate the detailed performance of the SKA, I'd like
to propose that those of us interested in this type of activity get
together for a meeting in the near future.

As some of you already know, Richard Schilizzi and the ISSC have
recently formed an SKA Simulation Working Group (SSWG), made up of
people and groups from around the world, which will work alongside
the SKA Science Advisory Committee and the SKA Engineering Management
Team.  I'm chairing this working group and some of you have already
signed up to participate.  If you have not signed up and would like
to, please let me know.

The SSWG will meet face-to-face for the first time at the Geraldton
meeting at the end of July.  Before then Richard Schilizzi is visiting
Australia and will be making a visit to the Swinburne University of
Technology on May 23 (Friday).  Since Richard is keenly interested in
the SKA simulation effort and Swinburne is to be one of the main
centres of simulation activity, I propose that the Australian simulators
meet on that date, at Swinburne.  Richard will be giving a talk on
the international perspective of the SKA in the morning, to set the
scene.  The rest of the day can be devoted to SKA simulation
discussions and/or presentations.

The main aim of the meeting will be to get to know what everyone in
Australia is doing or planning on doing and hopefully find ways in
which our efforts can be coordinated.  This will be a great opportunity
ahead of the Geraldton meeting, as in Geraldton the SSWG will be
attempting to achieve a good level of simulation coordination at
the global level.

All aspects of SKA simulations are up for possible discussion,
including:

* Forming models of the radio sky;
* Requirements of different SKA concepts;
* Instrumental effects (primary beams, receivers, etc);
* Environmental effects (atmospheric and ionospheric effects, RFI);
* Wide-field imaging;
* Computational requirements for simulations and data reduction;
* Standard software packages and data formats;
* Many other issues..........

If you are interested in attending this meeting, please let me know
by April 23, and you might indicate if you would be prepared to
contribute a presentation to the meeting.  I'll send out a reminder
to this distribution list before this date.  If you have colleagues
or students who might be interested in attending, please pass this
email on to them.

Best Regards,

Steven Tingay