• 1.1 INTRODUCTION
• 1.2 BOOKING NMR TIME
• 1.3 ACCOUNTABILITY FOR NMR TIME
• 1.4 DATA STORAGE AND ARCHIVING

The NMR Facility at the UCHSC comprises Varian Inova 600 MHz and 500 MHz spectrometers. In addition to the spectrometers the facility has a number of Silicon Graphics and Sun workstations that can be used for offline data processing. This handout is intended to serve as a practical guide to the facility and contains some general guidelines that users should follow when using the facility. These guidelines are intended to make it easier for the managers of the facility to quickly diagnose and solve any problems that you may encounter.

This guide is not intended to teach the individual the ins and outs of a modern NMR spectrometer nor the principles behind modern multiple pulse sequences that are used in today's studies of biological macromolecules. Rather it attempts to provide a practical guide for the user to enable him/her/it to record basic one and/or two dimensional experiments that will serve as a baseline for further work.

All modern NMR spectrometers are connected to a Unix based workstation and their use requires a basic knowledge of Unix. You should at the very least understand the basic concepts of the unix file structure and how to move, copy and delete files. You should know the difference between absolute and relative pathnames. You should also know how to use the bacsic unix editor "vi".

NMR time is allocated in 24 hour blocks. If you want to use the spectrometer you should send an e-mail stating what experiment(s) you want to do and the amount of time these will require. A schedule for NMR time is posted here. You can also book NMR time from this page

The NMR Facility operates under a re-charging scheme. This means that you are charged for any NMR time that you use and you are held accountable for any NMR time allocated to you. Your group will be billed on a monthly basis for the use of the NMR time.

The daily allocation period runs from 10 am-10 am. You should vacate the spectrometer by 10 am of the day that you are scheduled to finish, making sure that your experiment has stopped and the data has been stored. You should sign the Log Book at the start of your session so that we know that the spectrometer is being used. You should complete the Log Book at the end of your session. Put in your name, your user group, the day that you started and the day that you finished. Also enter the type of experiments that you ran and the sample conditions. In addition please enter any notes or observations that you thought were unusual or better than normal, e.g. computer problems, good line shape etc.

You will be billed according to your entry in the Log Book. If you do not or cannot use the allocated slot, please let the managers know preferably a week in advance. If you do not use your allocation or you do not inform the managers in sufficient time so that alternative arrangements can be made then you will be charged for that time as if you had used it in full. If there is no entry in the Log Book for that day you will be charged for the full usage on the basis of the published schedule. You are welcome to make arrangements with other users to swap allocations of time if it is mutually convenient for you both however, we ask that you inform us of such arrangements.

Data that is collected on any of the NMR spectrometers may be stored temporarily on the external drives provided. Any data that is more than one week old will be deleted if there is insufficient space on these drives. It is not our policy to back up any user collected data on any of the spectrometers. All users are responsible for ensuring that their data is backed up before it is deleted.

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