Testers Needed: Metar Wx Reports on Your Cell Phone

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.