Two Voyager Uranus and Neptune questions Options

[Paolo]

While researching for my book on solar system exploration two questions have surfaced:
1) In some articles the vidicon sensor of Voyager 2 was said to be 50 per cent more sensitive than that of its sister. Was it just by chance or were the better sensors actually mounted on the probe flying the JSUN trajectory?
2) At the time of the Neptune flyby the Goldstone DSN antenna was arrayed with the Very Large Array, Canberra was pooled with Usuda in Japan. Why wasn't Madrid arrayed with, for example, the Effelsberg radiotelescope in Germany? Was it because Neptune would be very low in the German sky at the time of encounter?

[tasp]

My recollection of the camera sensitivity issue was that both tubes met specs, one was better though, and fortunately, it wound up on Voyager 2. IIRC, Bruce Murray might have mentioned that in his book. Might have been the Voyager Neptune Travel Guide, too.

I think you are correct about the dish arrays, IIRC, at least for the Uranus encounter, the closest approach and on board tape recorder playback occured when Voyager 2 was over Australia.

[JRehling]

FWIW, Voyager 2 was launched 16 days before Voyager 1, so the better equipment went up with the first craft launched.

Also, Voyager 1 had a contingency of visting Pluto, which was sacrificed in order to provide a better flyby of Titan. At the time of a putative flyby, though, Pluto was actually closer to the Sun than Neptune, so Neptune "deserved" the better optics more.

I'm not sure *when* the decision was made re: Titan/Pluto. I can't think of any reason why the decision needed to wait until after the craft had been launched, so I guess it was made before launch; anyone know for sure?