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Real time observations from your home weather station can be of great interest to the many people across the country who share your interest in the weather. These data are also of interest to NOAA and your weather data will be included on the NOAA Mesonet Map Display and distributed to user organizations. 1. Amateur Radio Operators If you are an amateur radio operator currently sending APRS weather data to findu.com, you can join APRSWXNET/CWOP by sending an e-mail to Russell.B.Chadwick@noaa.gov with your callsign, elevation in meters, and nearby town and zip. If you are an amateur radio operator who is not sending APRS weather data and you want to send weather data over the internet, just use your callsign. Your ham radio callsign takes the place of the CW Designator in steps B and C below. You won't need a CW number. 2. Citizen Weather Observers If you would like to send data via the Internet, participation in the program requires three simple steps: A. Obtain a CW designation number (or designator) using the form provided below. You will receive an e-mail reply with your assigned number (similar to "CW9999"). B. Install software designed to format and transport your data to the APRS Internet System, in APRS weather packet format. Commercially available, full featured, weather software packages have been configured to produce and send these packets to the aprs servers via Internet. Also,freeware to do this is available from the National Hurricane Center Volunteer Observers site referenced below. C. Check that your data is successfully reaching the findu.com server by entering http://wx.findu.com/CWXXXX into your browser where CWXXXX is your CW designation number. You can also check to see if your packets have been received, at Packet Checking (parts 1 and 2). If your location is correct, send an e-mail to Russell.B.Chadwick@noaa.gov giving your CW designator or ham radio callsign and ask to be registered so your data can flow to NOAA. Note that in your data packets the latitude/longitude of your weather station must be in the form of "ddmm.hhN/dddmm.hhW" (without quotes), where d is degrees, m is minutes, and h is hundredths of minutes. Leading zeros are required. Negative signs, colons, or semi-colons are not allowed; use capital letters (N,E,S,W) to indicate hemisphere. This LORAN format allows your plotted location to be within about 60 feet of your true location (if you get the numbers right). To obtain a CW designation number, fill out this form. RELATED LINKS This is a listing of links with useful information related to joining APRSWXNET/CWOP. |