The SWS and the IDC have been contacted by the STARTYPE group (S.D. Price,
G. Sloan and K. Kraemer) at the Air Force Research Laboratory
about systematic problems with their spectra based on OLP10 data. The
problems they describe are emission features of 
4-6% in SWS AOT bands 2A
and 2C and a systematic slope of 2% across band 2B in stars where such
features are non-physical. Furthermore, the shape of the features are
suggestive of the CO fundamental at 4.3-5.5 
m and the SiO fundamental at
8-11 m. Figure 1 shows the mean ratio from 2.3 to 11.5
m of stars processed with the STARTYPE post AAR processing and the
Cohen et al. absolutely calibrated composite spectra
[1,2,3] of a sample of stars in the
SWS database [6].
The STARTYPE group interprets the systematic
differences between composite spectra by Cohen and the result of their
processing of SWS spectra as deficiencies in the late-type star
synthetic spectra by Decin ([5]) used for the
OLP 10 RSRF calibration [8] and absolute photometric calibration [7].
However the problem is not so transparent. It should be noted, that the
original validation report of L. Decin for OLP 10 also discusses some of
the same RSRF problems as described in this note.
It is unfortunate that these earlier warnings went unheeded.
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