Testers Needed: Metar Wx Reports on Your Cell Phone

Looking for pilot beta testers to help us test a new Metar weather txt
messaging service. Your account is free in exchange for helping us to
test. Visit us at www.wxnotice.com.

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:10:56 -0700, wrote:

Looking for pilot beta testers to help us test a new Metar weather txt
messaging service. Your account is free in exchange for helping us to
test. Visit us at www.wxnotice.com.
Is this a worlwide service or restricted to one country only (presumably
America?)
Geo

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 19:18:58 GMT, Geo
wrote:

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:10:56 -0700, wrote:

Looking for pilot beta testers to help us test a new Metar weather txt
messaging service. Your account is free in exchange for helping us to
test. Visit us at www.wxnotice.com.
Is this a worlwide service or restricted to one country only (presumably
America?)
Geo

At the moment it's US only. There are technical issues about getting
the txt msgs out to another country outside of the US. I plan to take
a look at providing international service after the US version is
fine-tuned and running OK. However, I don't have a time table as to
when that might be. But it's on my to-do list. You may be able to help
me test if your outside of the US. Email me and tell me who your
cellular provider is. I have some questions I need to ask you, etc.
Maybe we can speed this up (international support) if I can get some
help!

Thanks...

wrote:

Looking for pilot beta testers to help us test a new Metar weather txt
messaging service. Your account is free in exchange for helping us to
test. Visit us at www.wxnotice.com.

I got a new cell phone in June and subscribed to My Cast until I cancelled
it yesterday. Cute, but not very practical. And, it has not only what
you propose but weather graphics.

Hi,

I got a new cell phone in June and subscribed to My Cast until I cancelled
it yesterday. Cute, but not very practical. And, it has not only what
you propose but weather graphics.

What would be practical? i.e. assuming you had a cell phone or Pocket PC,
what weather information would you like to see? Was it not practical
because of the small screen size or because of MyCast's functionality?

Hilton

In a previous article, "Hilton" said:
Hi,
I got a new cell phone in June and subscribed to My Cast until I cancelled
it yesterday. Cute, but not very practical. And, it has not only what
you propose but weather graphics.

What would be practical? i.e. assuming you had a cell phone or Pocket PC,
what weather information would you like to see? Was it not practical
because of the small screen size or because of MyCast's functionality?

I've also got a cell phone weather thingy, but WxServer not MyCast.
Usually I don't use it, because I'd rather find a WiFi connection and use
my laptop. There is just more information available and a better user
interface with a laptop. The limitations of the cell phone screen size
and the limited keyboard mean that I only use the cell phone in a dire
situation, or to do a spot check of the radar picture while I'm between
WiFi hotspots.


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
C isn't that hard: void (*(*f[])())() defines f as an array of
unspecified size, of pointers to functions that return pointers to
functions that return void.

Hilton wrote:

Hi,

I got a new cell phone in June and subscribed to My Cast until I cancelled
it yesterday. Cute, but not very practical. And, it has not only what
you propose but weather graphics.

What would be practical? i.e. assuming you had a cell phone or Pocket PC,
what weather information would you like to see? Was it not practical
because of the small screen size or because of MyCast's functionality?


Small screen size. Inability to scroll through a route longer than some length
predetermined by MyCast. Also, it works only where the cell sites have the data
system (Cingular in my case). I was at KBIH and KMMH where I had strong digital
voice, yet no MyCast.

For this stuff to be practical it's got to have a screen at least as large as a
Garmin 530's, and connectivity has to be as robust in the boonies as it is in a
major metro area. In fact, it is more important in the boonies than in the
metro area because there are generally options in the metro areas.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:36:47 -0700, wrote:



Hilton wrote:

Hi,

I got a new cell phone in June and subscribed to My Cast until I cancelled
it yesterday. Cute, but not very practical. And, it has not only what
you propose but weather graphics.

What would be practical? i.e. assuming you had a cell phone or Pocket PC,
what weather information would you like to see? Was it not practical
because of the small screen size or because of MyCast's functionality?


Small screen size. Inability to scroll through a route longer than some length
predetermined by MyCast. Also, it works only where the cell sites have the data
system (Cingular in my case). I was at KBIH and KMMH where I had strong digital
voice, yet no MyCast.

For this stuff to be practical it's got to have a screen at least as large as a
Garmin 530's, and connectivity has to be as robust in the boonies as it is in a
major metro area. In fact, it is more important in the boonies than in the
metro area because there are generally options in the metro areas.


I agree 100% - I don't think getting wx on a cell phone is a
replacement for other ways of obtaining wx - I see getting wx 'pushed'
to your cell phone as an addition value *if* it's structured the
correct way: The 3 most important items in a Metar report are winds,
visibility and ceiling. With my service you can get an abbreviated
Metar report sent to you which only has these 3 items. The idea is to
monitor an airport and have the system (my web site) send you this
info when it's important to you to know what the wx is. This is done
by triggers you set up for this airport when you created the record to
monitor the airport. That way, and I think this is the key, your not
actively using your cell phone like a computer to obtain wx info - the
wx info your interested in is 'pushed' to you and you just read it
easily on your cell phone screen in an abbreviated format:

KLAS 25003KT 1 1/2SM OVC005

With the selective delivery options I provide, now you'll get only the
wx your interested in monitoring and all you have to do is read the
cell phone screen.

I used it this way in the past 3 days: I selected HWO and ORL and was
notified when vis was less than 5miles, ceilings less than 3000 ft and
winds over 12 knots. This painted a picture for me on a trip to do a
seminar. I noted the times of weather issues and estimated when I could
depart for home. Then, when the seminar was over I called for a
standard route briefing, noting if it deviated from the routine I had
read from my cell. It didn't so I departed about the time I expected. I
don't know that this does more than add to the total amount of
information worth knowing but that in itself is worth having.

The problem I see for a paid service is that with the G1000, we'll have
this info and more. That wouldn't be your target market, obviously.
There will be plenty of aircraft without Nexrad via Satellite, however.

I would suggest graphics at some point, either stills or, preferable,
loops (such as those on the ADDS site).

The other thing is that I'd like to be able to specify a trip profile -
that is, a series of stations submitted at once for monitoring 2, 3 or
4 days. The easier to enter, the better.

But, I'm not complaining. I knew what to expect and when to plan a
departure and your metar reports helped build the picture. Thanks.

Mike

On Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:55:25 -0700, wrote:



wrote:

Looking for pilot beta testers to help us test a new Metar weather txt
messaging service. Your account is free in exchange for helping us to
test. Visit us at www.wxnotice.com.

I got a new cell phone in June and subscribed to My Cast until I cancelled
it yesterday. Cute, but not very practical. And, it has not only what
you propose but weather graphics.

My Metar service is setup differently. When you create an airport
record to monitor an airport, you specify 3 trigger paramters: wind,
vis and ceiling. Let's say, 10kts, 5sm and 3500 ceiling. Each hour the
wx is checked and if any one of your 3 triggers is met (wind = 10kts
and/or vis = 5 and/or ceil = 3500 feet) then a txt msg is sent.

You also have the option to email (not txt msg due to its size
exceeding 160 chars) the english decoded Metar report.

I've tried to design my service with flexibility in mind. So, while it
is intended to send txt msgs to a cell phone, you *can* have your data
sent to your email address.

You should check out the web site and I would welcome your feedback on
it's current feature set. In the future I intend to add wx graphics
but I agree with you re MyCast. Not that practical IMO. That's exactly
why I designed my service as a 'push' technology. You don't have to
push a bunch of keys on your web enabled cell phone to get to the wx
you want. You create a record on a web site of what wx you want and we
'push' it to you so all you have to do is open your phone to answer
the incoming txt msg.