padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) (02/11/85)
Does anyone out there know of any system that provides detailed weather information that one could dial-up? There are times when I feel like studying a detailed weather map/ or the equivalent, and interpreting it for myself, but don't know how to gain access to one easily.
dwl@hou4b.UUCP (D Levenson) (02/18/85)
Weather Services Inc (WSI) of Boston, MA. provides a very comprehensive weather database with dial-up access. They can be called via their own 800 number, or thru Tymnet and Telinet. You can call at 300 or 1200 bps, and the charge for connect time, the last time I asked, was $1.00 per minute at 300, $2.00 per minute at 1200. There is a minimum billing of 1 hour per month. You may share an account with other users, if you expect to use less than the monthly minimum. (You pay the bill, and collect from the others. They'll even give you separete user names and passwords, and give you a detailed billing statement to facilitate this activity.) Their weather service includes all aviation weather (current observations, area forcasts, terminal forcasts, winds aloft with temperature, radar summary charts, convective activity Sigmets, etc.) and a lot of general weather info as well. Their graphics (as used in radar summary charts) are produced with the normal ascii character set, and can be viewed on any CRT or hard-copy terminal. A complete pre-flight breefing takes 3-5 minutes at 300 baud. Is it worth is? That's up to you. I've never received a busy signal when attempting to dial up on weekends. They even claim to be in the process of setting up the necessary interface with the FAA to allow you to file IFR flightplans on line! Dave Levenson AT&T-IS, Holmdel