HD-RADAR

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.

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.
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.

"Captain Midnight" wrote in message
...
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.

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.
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 would be really distrubing would be a version of Google Earth running
in Realtime
that they could call up with their HD Radar and show a twister heading for
your house!!
That would certainly get people's attention!!
james

"james" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Captain Midnight" wrote in message
...
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.

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.
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 would be really distrubing would be a version of Google Earth running
in Realtime
that they could call up with their HD Radar and show a twister heading for
your house!!
That would certainly get people's attention!!
james


The picture they showed had reasonably clear pictures of individual
buildings. Possibly better than Google Earth(at least what you see for
free). They said it can pinpoint much better than the old radar but it was
clear today so nothing to get an idea of how much better.

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.

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.
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.


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.

While I normally watch NBC affiliate, I've switched to CBS just
because they have HD.

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.

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).


| 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.


| 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.

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

On Sat, 30 Jun 2007 06:23:44 -0700 Sam Spade wrote:

| 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.

It's not exactly free. You have to provide the interface equipment and
the data link to get it. Then you have to convert it to video form.
The raw radar output is not video. The specs for it are online at the
NOAA site somewhere, as I have run across them. You can even get raw
feeds delayed online (the delay might be less than with images).

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

"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.

Dave

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.

Where having your own radar helps is when you want to change angles or
modes. You're stuck with what NOAA is doing in theirs. But if you want
to tilt up to see closer cloud tops on your own, you can (if you have
all the right remote controls, etc).

--
|---------------------------------------/----------------------------------|
| 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 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.

Dave