Mobile Aviation Weather

I remember something about X.25 packet switching, but I think you have
to have a ham license to make use of it.

What got me thinking about it are the ultraportables laptops such as
the OLPC or the EEE PC. To me those little machines would
make great little flight computers. Of course any laptop would work.

My thought would be an open source app that would run on the laptop.
Sites that want to be available
for use as in the air hotspots could either register with a central
website that would log the information and gps location
or perhaps broadcast a special wifi identifier. When a hotspot was
found by the laptop, it would automatically query
for any weather reports of interest and update the display.

I would expect the wifi hotspot should probably be locked down to
allow access to aviation/weather related sites only.
This would minimize abuse of a hotspot and bandwidth usage.

At this point I do not even own any wifi devices, so I am not sure how
much of the firewall capability is built
into wifi devices. Once I finish my pilot training this is something I
plan to experiment with though.

On Nov 1, 11:33 am, "Morgans" wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote

What's wrong with aviationweather.gov? That's what I use on my cell
phone and I've never had a problem. Maybe you're using a 1980's cell
phone?

In the air, you are not supposed to use a cell phone, though.

Could someone set up a WiFi type of system, and get fellow Hams to make a
network of internet enabled ham band links?

That would be pretty cool, even it was just in your local area. To do it on
a wide scale would be a pretty large task, and no doubt, someone would want
to get their regulations on it.
--
Jim in NC

For those of you with smartphones and PDA's with wireless all of this
has already been done. I originally got this for the W+B part of the
program, it is by far the best I've seen. This program is a full
featured flight planning program.


http://www.hiltonsoftware.com/




Marco Leon wrote:
"Felix" wrote in message
ups.com...

I've used aviationweather.gov and it's a great site. But it's not
really made to be used on your phone. I use a Treo 750 with Verzion
(high speed EVDO connection) and it still takes a while to load. I'm
making awx.mobi (or m.airwx.com) work quickly on a whole range of
phones. Even the 1980s model :-)

-Felix

Plus i plan to extend it so that you can file flight plans on your
phone with your duats account! And other neat features. So if people
really like it, they can suggest other things they need and i'll put
them in as well.


Just checked it out Felix--works great! I don't have a "SmartPhone" but I do
have a Mobile Web 2.0-capable phone and have been looking for a site like
this. Thanks!

Specifically, I've been looking for TAFs, METARs, and flight plan filing
since their simple text-based format works well with the limited screen real
estate and low bandwidth.

For soem other ideas, Winds aloft might be nice and can be driven by the
airport code. Others like area forecast, airmets/sigmets, and PIREPs I
imagine would be a bit harder since they'd have to cover a larger area and
tend to be text-heavy.

Good luck with the project.

Marco

wrote:

I would expect the wifi hotspot should probably be locked down to
allow access to aviation/weather related sites only.
This would minimize abuse of a hotspot and bandwidth usage.

As I mentioned I was able to connect to AT&Ts Edge network this weekend at
7k feet with my iPhone. On the same flight over town, including my on house
my iPhone was NOT able to even see any WiFi hotspots.

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Morgans wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote

What's wrong with aviationweather.gov? That's what I use on my cell
phone and I've never had a problem. Maybe you're using a 1980's cell
phone?

In the air, you are not supposed to use a cell phone, though.


I was able to keep an AT&T Edge network connection up to 7,000 feet this
weekend on my iPhone.

So, without going into the whole debate again, is that one of the legal
ones to use in the air, and if lots of people started using them at 7,000
feet, would the system not overload from hitting too many towers?

What does ATT say about using them in an aircraft? I know the response is
about the FCC, and that they are not prohibited, but realistically, is there
something about the Edge network that keeps the tower hits down?
--
Jim in NC

My thought would be an open source app that would run on the laptop.
Sites that want to be available
for use as in the air hotspots could either register with a central
website that would log the information and gps location
or perhaps broadcast a special wifi identifier. When a hotspot was
found by the laptop, it would automatically query
for any weather reports of interest and update the display.

I would expect the wifi hotspot should probably be locked down to
allow access to aviation/weather related sites only.
This would minimize abuse of a hotspot and bandwidth usage.

I don't see why a little more capability could not be utilized than that.
Perhaps some plain text E-mail connection could be made. It would be darn
handy to be able to send and receive a few E-mails while airborn. I agree
that wholesale web surfing would be a problem, though.

At this point I do not even own any wifi devices, so I am not sure how
much of the firewall capability is built
into wifi devices. Once I finish my pilot training this is something I
plan to experiment with though.

Cool. I await your results.

Something like this could bring a real awakening to hams, increasing numbers
of members and an increase of utility to a great degree.
--
Jim in NC

On Nov 1, 9:48 am, "Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net
wrote:
Morgans wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote

What's wrong with aviationweather.gov? That's what I use on my cell
phone and I've never had a problem. Maybe you're using a 1980's cell
phone?

In the air, you are not supposed to use a cell phone, though.

I was able to keep an AT&T Edge network connection up to 7,000 feet this
weekend on my iPhone.

When I'm going into SMO I can't get ATIS until I get over the
mountains but I can get aviationweather.gov over Bakersfield. Its nice
to see the sat picture and get METARs.

-Robert

On Nov 1, 11:54 am, "Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net
wrote:
wrote:

I would expect the wifi hotspot should probably be locked down to
allow access to aviation/weather related sites only.
This would minimize abuse of a hotspot and bandwidth usage.

As I mentioned I was able to connect to AT&Ts Edge network this weekend at
7k feet with my iPhone. On the same flight over town, including my on house
my iPhone was NOT able to even see any WiFi hotspots.

I've been able to get Edge and 3G from AT&T

-Robert

I just go to arinav. The phone numbers for atis, awos and local airports are
all there.
Just stored in in my favorits.
"Felix" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi Everyone,

I've found that I always want to look up METARs and TAFs when not in
front of a computer. So I wrote a Mobile website to do get this info
for me straight from NOAA.

I thought it would also be useful to others. So here is the URL:
awx.mobi Its a free service and no registering needed to use it. Just
goto that URL on your phone and you'll be able to get METARs TAFs and
the current national Radar image.

I'm working on other information as well like state by state radar,
airport runway lengths, freq...etc.

This is all in beta...I'm working on this at my spare time. But
updates will be coming.

If you have any problems like your phone isn't loading the site. Then
send an email to me at felix at bepilot.com and tell me your phone
model and ill add support for your phone.

Suggestions questions and comments also welcome at the above email
address.

Thanks!

Felix

what about a blackberry?
"Newps" wrote in message
. ..
For those of you with smartphones and PDA's with wireless all of this has
already been done. I originally got this for the W+B part of the program,
it is by far the best I've seen. This program is a full featured flight
planning program.


http://www.hiltonsoftware.com/




Marco Leon wrote:
"Felix" wrote in message
ups.com...

I've used aviationweather.gov and it's a great site. But it's not
really made to be used on your phone. I use a Treo 750 with Verzion
(high speed EVDO connection) and it still takes a while to load. I'm
making awx.mobi (or m.airwx.com) work quickly on a whole range of
phones. Even the 1980s model :-)

-Felix

Plus i plan to extend it so that you can file flight plans on your
phone with your duats account! And other neat features. So if people
really like it, they can suggest other things they need and i'll put
them in as well.


Just checked it out Felix--works great! I don't have a "SmartPhone" but I
do have a Mobile Web 2.0-capable phone and have been looking for a site
like this. Thanks!

Specifically, I've been looking for TAFs, METARs, and flight plan filing
since their simple text-based format works well with the limited screen
real estate and low bandwidth.

For soem other ideas, Winds aloft might be nice and can be driven by the
airport code. Others like area forecast, airmets/sigmets, and PIREPs I
imagine would be a bit harder since they'd have to cover a larger area
and tend to be text-heavy.

Good luck with the project.

Marco

InstantG.com also works, but you still have to access the internet.

You might try http://www.avwx2go.com/ , which let you get weather via
sms, which is usually faster. Don't know if it still works