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ZL3AI > APRDIG 05.03.04 13:08l 272 Lines 9566 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: TAPR Digest, Mar 03, 2/7
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From: ZL3AI@ZL3VML.#80.NZL.OC
To : APRDIG@WW
Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: "Tyler Allison" <tyler@allisonhouse.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 10:31:21 -0500 (EST)
X-Message-Number: 12
>I know we know the difference between Local and UTC, but all of the
>areas I click on shows a radar image of 05:52 UTC, which is several
>hours old, :-(
>
>Maybe, just maybe, there is a secret conspiracy to get rid of Freebie
>type of services, such as APRS's users. 8 million hits a month to FINDU,
>let alone the millions of non aprs hits at these Radar and Map sites
>receive since the onslaught of Cable modems and always connected
>operation.
>
>Do we unnecessarily bombard these sites just because we can? What is
>involved Steve, of maintaining such sites?
Actually it looks like something major happened.
weather.noaa.gov is down which was the primary location for 'free' raw
weather information. Raw forecast, warning and METAR data is no longer
available...at least at the moment.
If you absolutely must have radar data I can provide a URL that will get
you the radar data from my NEXRAD feed in the same format as is available
via the geo file. You simply change the url. Drop me a line.
-Tyler
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Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: Gerry Creager N5JXS <gerry.creager@tamu.edu>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 10:12:51 -0600
X-Message-Number: 13
I'm getting an old map, too.
OK. I shouldn't advertise before I have the products ready, but...
Tyler Allison and I are both doing some radar mosaics.
I'll start working, today, on doing 8-10 mosaics covering the CONUS,
Hawaii and Alaska. That's all the radar (NEXRAD Level III) data I've
got available. I don't have the time now to take the incoming Level II
data and do predictive storm plots, etc., so that'll have to wait 'til I
can con a grad student into doing that for a thesis project. Maybe next
year.
Generally, I build in .png format, but I think I'll do these in .gif.
If anyone has particular heartburn about these two, please let me know
soon. Rants about Unisys will go to /dev/nul
I'll send out the associated .geo and .inf files when I get them.
This won't necessarily give you a single radar site, but a good mosaic
of the ones in a region.
gerry
--
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager@tamu.edu
Network Engineering -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.847.8578
Page: 979.228.0173
Office: 903A Eller Bldg, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843
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Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: "Tyler Allison" <tyler@allisonhouse.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 11:34:51 -0500 (EST)
X-Message-Number: 14
>This won't necessarily give you a single radar site, but a good mosaic
>of the ones in a region.
Since Gerry is willing to do the mosaics (the hard part) I can provide
individual radar sites to the APRS community if there is an interest.
I actually have them available on the internet already with a sorta hidden
URL. Im just not sure I want to run the risk of a $1000+ bandwidth bill if
some APRS user hits refresh on his GUI every 5 seconds.
-Tyler
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Subject: NOAA fall down and go boom
From: "Tyler Allison" <tyler@allisonhouse.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 11:36:24 -0500 (EST)
X-Message-Number: 15
CENTRAL OPERATIONS/NOAA/NWS/NCEP WASHINGTON DC
1605 UTC WED MAR 3 2004
031605Z...BAD NEWS FROM TOC GATEWAY...THEIR AFS DIRECTORY
MUST BE REBUILT BEFORE THE TGFTP AND PTGFTP FTP SERVERS AND
WEATHER.NOAA.GOV WEBSITE CAN BE RESTORED TO SERVICE.
06Z NCEP MODEL GUIDANCE WILL NOT BE POSTED TO THE GATEWAY FTP
SERVERS...WHICH WILL HOPEFULLY START POSTING 12Z NCEP MODEL
GUIDANCE ONCE THE SERVERS ARE AVAILABLE AGAIN. WILL KEEP YOU
POSTED.
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Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: Gerry Creager N5JXS <gerry.creager@tamu.edu>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 10:43:52 -0600
X-Message-Number: 16
NWS is dedicated to rolling out MORE free dissemination of data nd
products rather than less. I've got a call or 2 outstanding now to see
what the problem is. I'll try to report back.
I've got a current mosaic of Texas for those interested at
http://mesonet.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/mapserv?mode=browse&zoomdir=0&zoomsize=2&layer=d
raar&layer=roads&imgxy=350+350&imgext=-106.800000+24.391000+-93.500000+37.70900m
0&ap=%2Fvar%2Fwww%2Fmesonet%2Ftexas%2Fmesonet.map&savequery=true&program=%2Fcgii
-bn%2Fmapserv&map_web_imagepath=%2Fvar%2Fwww%2Fmesonet%2Ftmp%2F&map_web_imageur%
l=2Ftmp%2F
Gerry
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: APRS Client Survey
From: K8DNE <wh.reynolds@verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 10:46:18 -0600
X-Message-Number: 17
Christensen, Eric wrote:
>I have posted the results of the Survey and the Destination Stats.
>
>Thanks,
>Eric KF4OTN
Good job, Eric. Speaks volumes for our good friends in the UK.
73.....bill
--
W. H. (Bill) Reynolds, K8DNE
A.R.R.L. Liaison F.C.C. Examiner
Rowlett, TX RACES Radio Officer, Unit 801R
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Subject: Re: [ui-view] RE: APRS Client Survey
From: David VanHorn <dvanhorn@cedar.net>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:03:26 -0500
X-Message-Number: 18
Congratulations Roger!
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Subject: Re: NOAA fall down and go boom
From: Gerry Creager N5JXS <gerry.creager@tamu.edu>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 11:04:21 -0600
X-Message-Number: 19
OUCH! That hurts all the numerical forecasting issues.
<:-)>
I gotta get my forecasting cluster on-order! Today! Yes! Really!
</:-)>
gerry
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Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: Steve Dimse <k4hg@tapr.org>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 12:10:01 -0500
X-Message-Number: 20
On 3/3/04 at 10:12 AM Gerry Creager N5JXS <gerry.creager@tamu.edu> sent:
>Tyler Allison and I are both doing some radar mosaics.
I've been lucky enough to preview a couple of these, and the BIG advantage
from findU's point of view is they have no map data associated with them.
Therefore, it will be possible to overlay them on top of (or underneath)
any findU map!
>Generally, I build in .png format, but I think I'll do these in .gif.
>
>If anyone has particular heartburn about these two, please let me know
>soon. Rants about Unisys will go to /dev/nul
Personally I'd prefer PNG so I can use them directly, but not a big deal if
you have reasons for the other, I already have the automatic conversion in
findU's code.
Steve K4HG
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Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: Steve Dimse <k4hg@tapr.org>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 12:11:41 -0500
X-Message-Number: 21
On 3/3/04 at 11:34 AM Tyler Allison <tyler@allisonhouse.com> sent:
>>This won't necessarily give you a single radar site, but a good mosaic
>>of the ones in a region.
>
>Since Gerry is willing to do the mosaics (the hard part) I can provide
>individual radar sites to the APRS community if there is an interest.
>
>I actually have them available on the internet already with a sorta hidden
>URL. Im just not sure I want to run the risk of a $1000+ bandwidth bill if
>some APRS user hits refresh on his GUI every 5 seconds.
I have no bandwidth bill, and I could host them on my server if one of you
feeds them to me.
Steve K4HG
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: NWS Radar trouble
From: Steve Dimse <k4hg@tapr.org>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 12:27:51 -0500
X-Message-Number: 22
On 3/3/04 at 8:32 AM Robbie WA9INF <mwrobertson@comcast.net> sent:
>Do we unnecessarily bombard these sites just because we can? What is
>involved Steve, of maintaining such sites?
The radar site has very little extra load per hit. The processing of images
is done on a scheduled basis. As the raw data becomes available, it is
processed into images, both single radar and mosaic, and placed into the
appropriate location on the web server. The result is the web server runs
as a static content server, which is very efficient, requiring almost no
processing time.
This it the way to run run a dense dynamic site, where the hits per
possible page are high. Almost every radar image will be viewed on their
web site during the six minutes it is the latest.
findU is a sparse server, having the opposite situation. For each of the
20,000+ people with positions, most will not be viewed while the current
position is fresh. The site therefore does not create a page until someone
requests it. Add in the weather, message, and other pages, and I'd be
creating millions of pages a day that would never be viewed if I ran it the
way the NWS site runs.
As to the weather radar, I already do caching of these images. If the image
in the cache is older than three minutes, then the program grabs a new
version from the NWS site, so no matter how many times people request a
radar image from my site, the maximum rate the NWS site will get hit is 20
times/hour for each of the radar sites.
On my list for a while has been to add the same caching for the geo files
people provide on other servers, however my main concern has been the fact
that many of these are copyrighted images and I do not want them hanging
around my filesystem.
Steve K4HG
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