Alcator C-Mod Weekly Highlights
			November 9, 1998



Engineering:

Reassembly of Alcator C-Mod continued last week.  All TF legs except the
first-to-last turn have been hi-potted, installed, aligned, and shimmed into
position.  Spring plates have been installed.  The first-to-last
turn leg will be installed early this week after completion of modifications
designed to increase its high voltage performance.  These modifications
include added insulation between the first-to-last plates in the LN2
cooling channels, changes to the spring plate housing to increase the
high voltage tracking length, and extension of the first-to-last turn
insulation to the top of the cooling panel housing to completely separate
the first-to-last plates electrically.  We also completed the final
turn-to-turn hi-pots of the TF core and arms last week.

The new transmitters, FMIT#3 and #4, are undergoing final tests in preparation
for the next run campaign.  The transmitters can now be run remotely.
Following the checkout of FMIT#3 and #4, we will test FMIT#1 and #2 and
bring them back online for the next campaign.

Calibration and testing of new coaxial components, directional
couplers, and demodulators is continuing.  Updating the computer interface
and testing the data aquisition setup for the new antenna remains to be done.
An undergraduate student project of automating RF switch positions has
moved to the design phase after a checkout of the existing hardware.

Parts of the new antenna and J-port flange arrived this week.  The pacing
item for the remainder of the antenna is the Faraday shield which is being
baked and fitted up at PPPL.

Development of the DNB and its diagnostics continued.  The F-port flange
passed its leak test and is now awaiting installation on C-Mod.  The
installation of studs to restrain the CXRS in-vessel optics began.
Pre-installation benchmarking of CXRS optics continued.  The results will
support later data analysis.  Conditioning of the oil in the Arc/Filament
power supply was completed, and conditioning began on the oil for the
accelerator supply.  The system for maintaining a nitrogen blanket installed
last week on the Arc/Filament power supply is operating well.
Work began on some additional boards required for the Mod/Reg, the system
that will be used to regulate the power to the beam accelerator.  The beam
profile monitoring diagnostic was installed in the beamline.  Assembly of
the drift tube for the accelerator tests began.

Progress continued on the development of the high resolution ECE
diagnostic.  Perry Phillips (UT-FRC) visited the PSFC to work with John
Heard (AU) to complete the fitup of the in-vessel mirrors, internal
waveguides, and windows on the F-Port flange.  On completion, John
travelled to Auburn to complete the spatial calibration of the ECE optics.
This calibration will support later data analysis.  Don Patterson (UT-FRC)
completed testing of the high frequency data acquisition Camac at UT-FRC
and began stuffing the Camac crates for shipment to MIT.


Travel and Visits:

Ron Bravenec (UT-FRC) visited to lay out the new electronics rack for BES,
to assist in installation of MSE/BES optics, and to participate in the
APS-DPP poster review.

The first in a series of Ignitor Working Group meetings was held on 3 - 4
November 1998 in the Physics Department here at MIT.  Martin Greenwald
presented a talk on confinement in C-Mod as compared with Ignitor.  M. Porkolab
and J. Snipes also attended the opening session of the meeting.  After the
meeting, Stewart Zweben and Robert Budny visited the PSFC on 5 November and
held discussions with various members of the staff on fast particle physics
issues and transport.  Stewart Zweben discussed the installation of
a tangential (re-entrant fiber bundle) intensified CCD system to look at
changes in turbulent transport during the L-H mode transition. This device
would be designed during the next run period for installation at the next
major break.

Paul Bonoli, Ian Hutchinson, and Miklos Porkolab were in Germantown, DOE,
on Nov. 5th, to present a Lower Hybrid Current Drive Proposal , together with 
Stefano Bernabei and Rich Hawryluk from PPPL.  A joint plan developed by
MIT and PPPL to do Advanced Tokamak physics experiments on C-Mod with LHCD
profile control was discussed.