Wanted: Live Radar on a Channel

[AJF]

Hey dlsnyder, that gave me an idea, how about "The Seismograph Channel" for those who live near fault zones?

 

[bcshields]

Dish is aiming to have all 210 DMA's launched. This will eliminate the local weather issue by having Bob the Wacky Weatherman do it on the 10 O'Clock News.

It might be a short term solution, even possibly done with wide regional spotbeams.

 

[Grandude]

Hey dlsnyder, that gave me an idea, how about "The Seismograph Channel" for those who live near fault zones?

Hey, I like that idea.

 

[AJF]

Here's another idea. Since Dish seems to be getting into the business of re-tagging and selling to us other company's electronics, like the plasma tv and now the Sirius Sat. radio receiver, how about this:

DishDoppler

He can sell to each of us our own Doppler radar station so we can get VERY local, live radar readings. Just picture one of those big domes sitting on top of your house!

 

[Stargazer]

I have installed the meteorologix dish and software for a business and it seemed to not be any better (perhaps with less features) than what you can find online at some of the weather websites that offer a premium service for a fee.

 

[LER]

I know the Dallas majors have the radar on the sub-channels, but some(most?) of us
don't have HDTV stuff to see them yet.

 

[curttucker]

How much bandwidth can it take?

I wouldn't think radar would take very much bandwidth because the picture would compress very tight due to it's cartoon like graphics. I live in a rural/farming community which have alot of satellite dishes on the homes and cable and high speed internet aren't available. It would be nice to have.

 

[ScooterS]

Local Radar- Wouldn't be that tough

Actually, I don't think that it would be that tough for Dish to run local radar for all of the Cities where they have local channels.

The lack of local radar, is one reason why many folks won't leave their cable company. They either get it through the local feed from "The Weather Channel" or on a dedicated cable weather channel.

You don't need a continuous feed of radar. You just need a "snapshot" every minute or so. One Dish channel should be able to send a frame of data for each City and then "scan" to the next one. The real question is whether the Dish Receivers could easily decode and display the most recent pictures. If they could hold a few frames, the display could actually "loop" the recent radar images.

As an Emergency Manager in my real-life this is a serious public safety issue.

 

[SimpleSimon]

You're absolutely right that it wouldn't take much bandwidth at all - a bit difficult to get all the uplinks in place - but not impossible. It could use the same technology as OpenTv on the downlink side.

 

[mike123abc]

They probably do not even need uplinks from each city. Instead they could use noaa weather http://www.nws.noaa.gov/radar_tab.html and just uplink the picture. They could probably just use their OpenTV stuff they have on newer recievers.

 

[Stargazer]

Radar loops are needed to see what direction the storms are going and to see if the storms are intensifying or not as they approach.

 

[nebguy94]

As an Emergency Manager in my real-life this is a serious public safety issue.

I think satellite may be the wrong medium to rely on to distribute critical weather information during storms where that type of information needs to be available. Seems to be far too great a chance that in the situation where you need the information the dish won't be able to pick up a good signal.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I think satellite may be the wrong medium to rely on to distribute critical weather information during storms where that type of information needs to be available. Seems to be far too great a chance that in the situation where you need the information the dish won't be able to pick up a good signal.

Sometimes satellite is all that's available. Far from optimal, but a helluva lot better than nothing. I know a lot of people that don't even have phone service (cell or landline) where they live. Fringe area OTA TV is 30 miles closer in. All they've got is D* or E*.

Addendum to signature for this context:
Colorado Firefighter II, Emergency Medical Technician B-IV,
Colorado EMS Primary Instructor, AHA BLS Instructor,
and finally, retired District Fire Chief

 

[Burt]

NO Way.. I use a thing called a "computer" that can getmuch more acurate and complete weather data from a thing called "internet".

 

[ScooterS]

Multiple weather sources are the best!

Multiple weather sources are the best. Dish radar would be another good "tool in the toolbox."

Yes, rainfade is a concern, but that occurs when the storm is already on-top of you.

There are lots of folks who, for personal and business reasons, want to easily know weather conditions.

Internet based weather sources are great, but they do require a computer, having it on, knowing the right link, etc. A lot of folks simply prefer to go to channel xx and see what is out there!

For those who do not live near a local site, they could see a regional picture, I' m sure this could be easily done by dish based on their existing database.

The data itself is readily available from the National Weather Service. Dish would not need to transport it in from local sites.

This would make good business for Dish. One of the reasons that I was reluctant to move to dish, was the loss of the local "Weather Channel" feed as well as the weather radar channel.

Hey SCOTT, any chance that you could feed this thread into Dish???

 

[Tahoerob]

Today it seems like a good idea. However, since all major DMA & most minor ones have access to OTA digital channels, these are the best source of local radar on sub-channels.

Ex. Channel 7-2 in DC

 

[Stargazer]

I know for a FACT that this would be something that would make a customer more likely to want to sign up for Dish Network and keep the service. This weather radar feature could be beneficial when used with the DVR service in that one could use the 4x, 15x functions to go through radar loops of still images that Dish Network could provide on a channel and program it to where you could loop it at that speed from the beginning.

 

[stratguy]

I lose Dish in the rain so what good would it do me?

I use my computer to look at local radar during storms that knock out my satellite service. It's faster and I get my choice of several different local's weather radar pages for coverage.

I have to agree with FWGMills There are thousands of weather sites on the Internet local, state. regional and world wide.

I wouldn't mind if they didn't use up bandwidth on our already overcrowded birds.