INTERAMERICAN METROLOGY SYSTEMSIM
Joint Technical and Professional Development Committees Meeting Minutes
Santa Cruz Room Anaheim, California
January 27-28, 1999

List of Attendees
Chairs:

Attendees:

The SIM Technical and Professional Development Committees met jointly during the Measurement Science Conference. The SIM Technical Committee Meeting Agenda included:
1) Plan for 1999 Technical Activities
2) Review of Comparisons and Measurements
3) Budget for 1999 and 2000
4) SIM's Position at the JCRB Meeting
5)Develop a strategy for the Technical Committee
6) Discuss technical support for developing countries

A status report was made of measurement activities that were being performed as SIM comparison. Identified were viscosity, pressure electricity (ac and dc voltage and current and dc resistance), force, temperature, acoustics (microphones), vibrations (accelerometers), mass and spectrophotometry. Being planned are two series of chemical comparisons and three additional chemical metrology course scheduled for 1999.

The SIM budget request for 1999 was approved at a reduced level of $150,000, which means that the planned SIM activities for this year will be reduced. It was stressed that OAS will NOT pay for per diem and will only support airfare. The proposed distribution of the 1999 budget is to be $70,000 for the Technical Committee with $10,000 for Legal Metrology, $30,000 for the Professional Development Committee and $50,000 for Coordination.

A report on the proposed JCRB (Joint Committee for Regional Metrology Organizations and the BIPM) meeting scheduled for February 15 -16, 1999 was presented. For this meeting each SIM member country had been requested in December 1998 to provide the SIM JCRB representative and the Technical Committee chair with a copy of their measurement capabilities and calibration information. This information was to be compiled and placed in a SIM database for presentation to the JCRB. At the time of this meeting only Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru, St. Lucia and Jamaica had submitted their measurement capabilities. Canada, Mexico and United States stated that their input was forthcoming.

For planning the technical activities for SIM during the upcoming year, the Technical Working Group (TWG) Chairs present suggested that this should be done using the measurement capabilities that each country was submitting. The Technical Committee Chair was asked to distribute copies of the measurement capabilities to each TWG Chair. Dr. Moises Tischler of INTI, TWG Chair for Thermometry, submitted a proposal for two activities (Attachment #1), characterization of a new type of water triple point cell and a round robin calibration of a standard Platinum resistance thermometer. It was recommended to Dr. Tischler that he hold up on his proposal until he had a chance to review the measurement capabilities being submitted by the countries.
The status of the Technical Working Groups:
· TWG for length has developed a plan for gauge block comparisons (Attachment #2),
· TWG for photometry and radiometry is developing a plan for absolute optical power and luminance intensity,
· TWG for time discussed developing a North American time scale that could be extended to include all of SIM,
· TWG for ionizing radiation just getting organized,
· TWG for electricity and magnetism will review each countries measurement capabilities and then develop a plan, · TWG for chemical metrology to meet in Orlando, FL at the PITCON meeting, March 12, 1999, to develop a plan,
· TWG for mass and related quantities is develop plans for its various components, and
· TWG for acoustics and vibration to organize a meeting in March 1999 in Rio de Janeiro, list of capabilities are needed,

The Legal Metrology Working Group activities, as reported by Chuck Erhlich, would be pursuing Items 4 and 5 of their resolutions.
An ad hoc committee will be meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in during the last week of March (Attachment #3).
The Professional Development Committee activities are summarized in Attachment #4. Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have paid BIPM dues, with Venezuela in the process of paying according to Mauricio Frota.
The first meeting of the consultative committee on acoustics will be July 20 - 21, 1999
The next Technical Committee meeting: July 11, 1999 at the NCSL Meeting in Charlotte, NC.
The next JCRB is to be held at the NCSL meeting on July 15, 1999.
Remind the SIM countries to submit their measurement capabilities as soon as possible. B. Stephen Carpenter submitted these minutes.