Skytap™ for Weather Wire Software
Skytap™ for Weather Wire Software acquires data from the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Wire data stream to provide timely notification of Watches, Warnings and other important weather events.
Skytap™ Software is compatible with the Computer Sciences Corporation C-band satellite receiver and the Internet data feed, so either delivery method may be used.
Software Features
- Powerful Alerting and Alarm output for user-selected products
- Decodes Zones and Counties
- Zone and County Alarm and Alerts
- Captures only user-selected data from the entire stream
- Archive, Autoprint, Publishing and other features user-selectable by product
- Automatic old data purge
- Compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows
WXWire Detailed Specifications
Click a Heading for detailed information about the topic.
Advanced User Interface
Data can be recalled by any of the following:
- Station and Products
- City-Pair Route and Products
- Geographical Area and Products
- Wild-card word or phrase search from any combination of stations and products, or the entire database.
- By age, or by most recently available.
- Data is flagged if older than 2, 4, 12 or 24 hours to alert the operator.
Ten user-programmable “Hot Buttons” for each recall method (Station, Route, and Area) are available. Each button may be individually programmed to display products by type and age.
Multiple, simultaneous display windows may be open at one time.
Each display window automatically updates when new data of the type in the window is received.
Each display window is a full text editor, allowing the addition or deletion of comments, or items as necessary. The modified text can be saved to any disk or network path, or printed as required.
Automatic Data Handling Functions
- Purging of old data - The user specifies how many of each type of product to maintain. The software will remove the oldest version of each product when the number of products of that type exceed the specified count.
- Alarms – The user may control which products, if any, cause alarms to be generated when those products are received. In addition, software alarms are generated if the system has difficulty performing background operations. The alarms can use any Windows supported sound cards with wave files (special effects, voice, or any other sound can be used), or the internal speaker of the PC, or be silent alarms which are logged, but do not enunciate.
- Disk Mirroring – A designated disk drive or network server can be specified as the target device for the built-in disk mirror. This function allows the user to specify on a per-product basis which products should be mirrored to the specified device. This function maintains an exact copy of the specified products on the target device, adding new ones and removing old ones as appropriate.
- File Conversion and Export – User selected Redbook graphics may be automatically converted to JPEG, TIFF, PCX or BMP formats and stored on a designated disk drive or network server. Separate destination paths can be specified for NEXRAD, DIFAX and satellite, and alphanumeric products.
- AutoPrint – Four separate printers are supported simultaneously, one each for Text, Satellite, Redbook Graphics and Nexrad radar. Each printer has a separate seven-day, 24-hour availability schedule, allowing the user to enable/disable autoprinting automatically throughout the week. Text autoprinting can be specified to occur by station and product as data is received, or by city-pair route and product, or geographical area and product, or station and product on a timed basis.
- Archive – The software can archive selected products to separately specified destinations.
- Re-Transmitter – The software can resend text products through a specified serial port in either ASCII or BAUDOT codes at speeds up to 19200 BPS.
Pricing and Limited Warranty
Skytap™ for Weather Wire Software: $1800.00
Software and user manual provided on CD-ROM
One Year Limited Warranty includes software updates as they are released, and technical phone support. Optional annual software maintenance support (software updates and technical support) after the initial one-year warranty period is available for $175.00 annually.
System Requirements
Minimum System Requirements Windows-2000 – 400Mhz Processor, 128Mb RAM, 20Gb Hard Drive Windows-XP – 1Ghz Processor, 512Mb RAM, 20Gb Hard Drive
Recommended System Requirements Windows-2000 – 800Mhz Processor, 256Mb RAM, 20Gb Hard Drive Windows-XP – 1.8Ghz Processor, 512Mb RAM, 40Gb Hard Drive
Other Information
User specified Weather Wire products are automatically saved to the hard disk for display, autoprint, alarm upon receipt, and re-direction out the computer’s serial port for third party application support, and more.
The software supports alphanumeric and Redbook Graphic products carried on the Weather Wire circuit. Skytap for Weather Wire enables the user to view, loop, pan, zoom, print and export Redbook Graphic products.
Marta Systems’ ROUTER program module performs background data processing functions, such as autoprint, file purging, export, etc., and is included with the Skytap™ for Weather Wire software.
About Weather Wire
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Wire Service (NWWS)
NWWS is a satellite broadcast system that delivers critical National Weather Service (NWS) information. CSC operates NWWS at greater than 99.9 percent availability for its proprietary C-band service and routinely delivers 99 percent of all messages within six seconds to more than 500 commercial and government customers nationwide.
Established in October 2000, the system collects data from 141 U.S. Weather Centers and special centers around the country, and broadcasts a continuous stream of alphanumeric information to NWWS customers in near-real time. Users may receive as much of the information as they want, for a low, fixed annual fee. Current customers include radio, television, and cable stations; universities; state and federal emergency management services; and many other government agencies.
For more information, please contact Gerard Tribie at nwws@csc.com Tel: (703) 818-4940 or (703) 633-234