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.

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 1 Sep 2005 17:10:29 -0700, "Mike Long" wrote:

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

Mike -

Thanks for taking the time to post your experiences with wxnotice.com.

1. I don't see wxnotice.com competing with the G1000 or any simuliar
in-cockpit system. wxnotice.com is service (IMO) for pilots to
monitorthe wx when they are *not* filying; such as while on a trip or
getting ready to take a trip. Several customers (testers at this
point) have written me saying they like the ability while out on a
trip to monitor their home airport while out doing things in the
destination city. As long as they don't get a txt msg they know the wx
is pretty decent at the home airport, so they have more peace of mind.

2. Graphics is on my list to offer. I'm hoping my design of using
'push' technology will be seen as being far superior to trying to use
your cell phone key pad to log onto the internet and navigate thru a
bunch of menus to get to the satellite pic you are interested in. I
tried that with another service and hated using it that way. It
actually gave me the idea of developing my own service but using
'push' technology. I'm trying to develop the capability to 'push' to
your cell phone a .jpg picture of the satellite image you want.

3. Good suggestion on the 'batch' creation for a group of a airports.
Mike you can do this already - here's how:

When finished creating a Metar WxNotification record, go back into the
edit mode with this record and use the Copy To New Record button. This
will make an exact copy of this record and all you have to do is
change the airport name. You can stay on this screen and make more
records all with the same parameters and all you have to do is just
change the airport name each time. Try it out. I think you'll see this
meets your suggestion. If not please let me know at


Ralph