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- - HD-RADAR (http://www.homecinemabanter.com/showthread.php?t=52038)

On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:07:33 -0500 David Moran wrote:
|
| wrote in message
| ...
| On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:26:12 -0500 David Moran
| wrote:
| |
| | "Sam Spade" wrote in message
| | ...
| |I can't believe any of these television stations are actually erecting
| |doppler radar sites. Those things cost a fortune to buy, erect, and
| |maintain. And, the government runs a whole bunch of them called NEXRAD
| and
| |offer the feeds to all of us gratis.
| |
| | As a meteorologist myself, the thing is that by the time the NEXRAD data
| can
| | get to everyone, it can be 10-15 minutes old. Most stations buy their
| own
| | radar because they get faster updates.
|
| They can get their own raw feed from the NOAA NEXRAD directly and process
| it themselves into video. I would think that is cheaper. It's real time
| since the raw feed is the serialized reflection data in the direction the
| radar is currently pointing.
|
| While I am not a television meteorologist, I'm only telling you what my
| television counterparts tell me. They've mainly complained that by the time
| they get NEXRAD data, it's 10-15 minutes old.

They must be getting it from a second source supplier which calls it
NEXRAD data (because it probably is NEXRAD data).

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below |
| first name lower case at ipal.net / |
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:07:33 -0500 David Moran
wrote:
|
| wrote in message
| ...
| On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 10:26:12 -0500 David Moran
| wrote:
| |
| | "Sam Spade" wrote in message
| | ...
| |I can't believe any of these television stations are actually
erecting
| |doppler radar sites. Those things cost a fortune to buy, erect, and
| |maintain. And, the government runs a whole bunch of them called
NEXRAD
| and
| |offer the feeds to all of us gratis.
| |
| | As a meteorologist myself, the thing is that by the time the NEXRAD
data
| can
| | get to everyone, it can be 10-15 minutes old. Most stations buy their
| own
| | radar because they get faster updates.
|
| They can get their own raw feed from the NOAA NEXRAD directly and
process
| it themselves into video. I would think that is cheaper. It's real
time
| since the raw feed is the serialized reflection data in the direction
the
| radar is currently pointing.
|
| While I am not a television meteorologist, I'm only telling you what my
| television counterparts tell me. They've mainly complained that by the
time
| they get NEXRAD data, it's 10-15 minutes old.

They must be getting it from a second source supplier which calls it
NEXRAD data (because it probably is NEXRAD data).

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (ka9wgn.ham.org) / Do not send to the address below
|
| first name lower case at ipal.net /
|
|------------------------------------/-------------------------------------|

It is. I don't know the specifics, but I'd assume they're getting it from a
second source.

Dave

David Moran wrote:

While I am not a television meteorologist, I'm only telling you what my
television counterparts tell me. They've mainly complained that by the time
they get NEXRAD data, it's 10-15 minutes old.

Dave

The NEXRAD radar I pull off www.nws.noaa.gov vary from 5 to 15 minutes,
depending upon the site.

I wonder why a television station would be concerned about that delay?

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:09:41 -0400 Captain Midnight
wrote:

| Local CBS affiliate, WHIO-DT(Dayton,OH), just gave a sneak peek of their
new
| HD Doppler radar. The stations news only went 16:9 a month or so ago,
IIRC.
| According to them they'll be the first in the nation to use the new
radar.
| The very brief preview looked like Doppler radar meets Google Earth.
That's
| all I know about it so can't answer questions. Looked really good but
have
| no idea how much more useful it will be.

So they make the radar look "cool" by adding a bunch of "ground clutter"?
I'd prefer a solid background and radar system that displays all
combinations
of attenuation, vector velocity, as well as cloud top heights. All of
that
combined can be rather intense and using some sort of topology as the
background would really just end up being more intrusive. I always turn
topo off for radar I get online (I get it where it can be turned off).

You have an opinion about something you've never seen? I turn off topo on
NWS radar too. At that resolution just knowing where the cities and counties
are is good enough, especially considering it's usually 12 minutes old
data. AFAIK the info on TV RADAR is as old as the sweep. Haven't had any
percipitaion since they turned it on. Won't really know what it's like until
it has some to show. Were actually in a drought. Not supposed to rain until
Wednsday.

Up until now on the old RADARs they've only been able to draw highways and
some roads on top of the RADARs output. It seems with this it's very easy to
tell what your looking at. In the view they showed last night of the I70&I75
interchange, tractor trailer rigs really showed up but with 4 wheelers you
couldn't tell if it was a car or pick-up. Not that the image is real time
just trying to show the clarity.

| Local Station's radars already made cable weather services look pathetic
..
| This isn't tornado alley but we get enough severe weather to make this
| desirable. Negotiations between them and TW nearly fell through at the
| beginning of the year. Our NBC affiliate is the best weather source in
the
| area(IMHO) at the moment. They don't allow TW to use their digital
output.

So the NBC affiliate will go dark on TW after Feb 17/18, 2009? Hmmm.

AFAIK they've never allowed them to use it. Or At least not in the last 2
years I've monitored the local thread on AVSFORUM.

| Access to the best weather would be reason enough to put up an antenna
but
| already have one, so no worries.
|
| Reminds me that over 30 years ago WHIO was one of the first stations to
| track a tornado. Somewhat like Pearl Harbor the new technology was
| dismissed. They didn't know for sure so was saying possible tornado.
People
| called the station to complain about the interruption of soap operas.
Turned
| out to be a Cat5 and 27 people died in Xenia. No I don't work for them.
Just
| thought it interesting and illustrates new technologies usefulness
shouldn't
| be dismissed out of hand.

What we won't ever know is if they hadn't done that, if more people would
have died. Common sense says that could be plausible. Saving one life is
worth dumping a soap opera. But then, so are a lot of things.

--

Yes it did but people were ignorant of the technology as we are about
HD-RADAR now. No one would complain about tornado warnings now. The callers
may have thought Doppler RADAR was a cool gimmick then too.

"jiml" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:09:41 -0400, "Captain Midnight"
wrote:

Our CBS station in Houston does all the news and weather in HD. From
my vantage point, I see the doppler in HD, so don't really care
whether it comes off the radar box that way.

I know the news in HD isn't all that new. I'm talking about the RADAR. Does
the RADAR you see look like Google Earth?

http://www.whiotv.com/weather/13580217/detail.html

Unfortunately no pics or video of the output.

"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...
David Moran wrote:

While I am not a television meteorologist, I'm only telling you what my
television counterparts tell me. They've mainly complained that by the
time they get NEXRAD data, it's 10-15 minutes old.

Dave

The NEXRAD radar I pull off www.nws.noaa.gov vary from 5 to 15 minutes,
depending upon the site.

I wonder why a television station would be concerned about that delay?

If I understand correctly, the main complaint is that during severe weather,
they can't get current information fast enough so they usually invest in
their own radar.

Dave

David Moran wrote:
"Sam Spade" wrote in message
...

David Moran wrote:

While I am not a television meteorologist, I'm only telling you what my
television counterparts tell me. They've mainly complained that by the
time they get NEXRAD data, it's 10-15 minutes old.

Dave

The NEXRAD radar I pull off www.nws.noaa.gov vary from 5 to 15 minutes,
depending upon the site.

I wonder why a television station would be concerned about that delay?

If I understand correctly, the main complaint is that during severe weather,
they can't get current information fast enough so they usually invest in
their own radar.

Dave

But don't the television stations receive tornado warnings from the
NWS's Storm Perdiction Center as soon as they are issued? Those
warnings are issued by experts with all the information at hand. I
can't imagine a local television outlet that thinks it can do better,
not to mention the liability issues.

A related aside: XM radio has become the vendor of choice to provide
NEXRAD radar images into many light aircraft that do not have airborne
weather radar. This includes anything from a portable Garmin navigator
unit to Garmin's integrated G-1000 in the new Cessna Mustang light jet
aircraft. The promotional literature claims NEXRAD radar is received in
"a near real time basis."

Sam Spade wrote:

But don't the television stations receive tornado warnings from the
NWS's Storm Perdiction Center as soon as they are issued? Those
warnings are issued by experts with all the information at hand. I
can't imagine a local television outlet that thinks it can do better,
not to mention the liability issues.

After a devastating tornado in (IIRC) 1989, the TV stations in
Huntsville, Alabama, where I lived at the time, decided that if they
operated their own weather radar, they could issue warnings critical
minutes before the NWS. Might save a few lives, and good for ratings too.

http://www.raycommedia.com/stations/waff.htm

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog

"Bill Anderson" wrote in message
...
Sam Spade wrote:

But don't the television stations receive tornado warnings from the
NWS's Storm Perdiction Center as soon as they are issued? Those
warnings are issued by experts with all the information at hand. I
can't imagine a local television outlet that thinks it can do better,
not to mention the liability issues.

After a devastating tornado in (IIRC) 1989, the TV stations in
Huntsville, Alabama, where I lived at the time, decided that if they
operated their own weather radar, they could issue warnings critical
minutes before the NWS. Might save a few lives, and good for ratings too.

I've seen local stations say they expected NWS to issue a warning numerous
times. Usually NWS does, as acknowledged by weather scanner. Sometimes can
hear my scanner go off at the same time as the warning at the studio. Don't
know if it's a difference in equipment, staffing or judgment. We're in
between NWS Wilmington, OH and Indianapolis, IN. Seem to be in an overlap
area that doesn't seem to get covered as well because of it, IMHO. Also NWS
covers a large area including Cincinnati and Columbus. Indianapolis must
know about the weather coming this way but Wilmington calls the shots. Don't
know if it's significant but the TV RADAR is 30 miles NW of Wilmington. I
live 60 miles NW of Wilmington.

Couple of years ago when WDTN put in their then more powerful RADAR WHIO
started advertising links to TV RADAR from Louisville, KY, Indianapolis and
Ft Wayne. Seemed like a good idea but AFAIK was/is almost never used. Maybe
the news/weather is just more competitive someplaces than others.