From knight at atmos.albany.edu Fri Jul 7 05:25:46 2000 From: knight at atmos.albany.edu (David J. Knight) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 11:25:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: difax down again Message-ID: <200007071125.LAA01406@oak.atmos.albany.edu> Hi, We've had no difax since Jul 7 01:30Z It appears that the ldm at lightning.alden.com is running but that it is not sending out any data. Seems this has been happening about once a week lately. Anybody know what is up? David From jweber at unidata.ucar.edu Tue Jul 25 14:09:14 2000 From: jweber at unidata.ucar.edu (Jeff Weber) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 14:09:14 -0600 (MDT) Subject: DIFAX Alternatives Message-ID: DIFAX community, The National Weather Service has informed Unidata that the DIFAX service will be terminated eventually. Alden has encountered some problems with the DIFAX service via the IDD, that they currently are providing. Unidata has tracked these issues and coordinated some options that can be utilized when the DIFAX service ceases to exist or Alden continues with idd transmission difficulties. Unidata is generating .gif imagery of these products via Redbook Graphics and can be viewed or downloaded at: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/redbook/ The University of Wisconsin is also generating DIFAX type products which are available for viewing and download in postscript format at: http://mapmaker.meteor.wisc.edu/difaxmaps/ NOAA also offers DIFAX type products for viewing and download in compressed (G4) .tiff formats at: http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/graph.shtml and http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/wefax/products.htm DIFAX will cease operations in the near future, we offer these options as interim solutions. -Jeff ____________________________ _____________________ Jeff Weber jweber at ucar.edu Unidata Support PH:303-497-8676 NWS-COMET Case Study Library FX:303-497-8690 University Corp for Atmospheric Research 3300 Mitchell Ln http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/jweber Boulder,Co 80307-3000 ________________________________________ ______________________ From person at mail.meteo.psu.edu Wed Jul 26 10:40:10 2000 From: person at mail.meteo.psu.edu (Arthur A. Person) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 12:40:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Alden Ku band Difax down? Message-ID: Hi... We get Difax via Ku band receiver from Alden... given the recent history of Difax from them, I thought I'd check here first to confirm whether anyone else is having trouble getting charts. Our Ku band feed appears to have stopped last night around 04:30Z. It looks like it started spitting a little this morning around 15:30Z, but probably not with data as it's been stuck on chart 089 the whole time. Also, does anyone know a date when the NWS plans to quit producing/transmitting Difax? This whole thing seems to be a mystery. Thanks. Art. Arthur A. Person Research Assistant, System Administrator Penn State Department of Meteorology email: person at mail.meteo.psu.edu, phone: 814-863-1563 From tmcderm at weather.brockport.edu Wed Jul 26 10:51:59 2000 From: tmcderm at weather.brockport.edu (Tom McDermott) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 12:51:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Alden Ku band Difax down? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Arthur A. Person wrote: > We get Difax via Ku band receiver from Alden... given the recent history > of Difax from them, I thought I'd check here first to confirm whether > anyone else is having trouble getting charts. Our Ku band feed appears to > have stopped last night around 04:30Z. It looks like it started spitting > a little this morning around 15:30Z, but probably not with data as it's > been stuck on chart 089 the whole time. Arthur, We get DIFAX via IDD and the last regular transmission was received at 0726/0425Z, except for a single product at 0621Z. Nothing since then. I believe neither the 'lightning' or 'thunder' Alden servers are sending anything. > Also, does anyone know a date when the NWS plans to quit > producing/transmitting Difax? This whole thing seems to be a mystery. I believe yesterday's message from Jeff Weber said 'eventually'. It would be nice to have a firm date. Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tom McDermott Email: tmcderm at weather.brockport.edu System Administrator Phone: (716) 395-5718 Earth Sciences Dept. Fax: (716) 395-2416 SUNY College at Brockport From sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu Wed Jul 26 11:31:19 2000 From: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu (Gilbert Sebenste) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 12:31:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: And now, the rest of the story Message-ID: Well, maybe not. But here's what I did. I called Al Cox, Alden's COO. I didn't hold back. Here's what's going on, according to him. First, the DiFAX situation...according to him, the NWS is down and having trouble with it. To verify this, I called some people at DTN/Kavouras I know and they aren't getting any data either. They say the NWS is having networking problems, so although they are producing maps (which is why the NWS weather.gov server has them), they can't route them out of the building via other methods. It isn't Alden. The T1 line, for you KU band dish users, was broken at the NWS. They say they will be back up by Monday. Why the automated phone response? He says they were inundated with calls, and they put the phone system on "emergency autopilot" to keep the volume down since they have no new information beyond that. They're not answering phones at the customer service lines, so that they can keep their techs free to do other stuff, from what he seemed to say. I won't comment here further. Yeah, I will. How in the world can a T1 be down for two weeks? Verio.net did that to NIU for one day, didn't bother to apologize, and we dumped 'em like a sack of potatoes years ago. ******************************************************************************* Gilbert Sebenste ******** Internet: gilbert at niu.edu (My opinions only!) ****** Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University **** E-mail: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu *** web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu ** Work phone: 815-753-5492 * ******************************************************************************* From rrm at master.nsbf.nasa.gov Wed Jul 26 11:48:38 2000 From: rrm at master.nsbf.nasa.gov (Robert Mullenax) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 18:48:38 +0100 Subject: And now, the rest of the story In-Reply-To: Okay, here is my point. Alden is supposed be a provider of data for operational use. How can a provider for such purposes have a 2 week outage? We had a T1 go down at our site in New Mexico a few years back and it only took a week to be repaired and this is in the very rural area of eastern New Mexico AND we told them it was not a rush job. The main thing though is the lack of response. I know customer service is becoming a thing of the past, but not responding to your customers regarding a 2-week outage is ridiculous. ----------------------------------------------------- Click here for Free Video!! http://www.gohip.com/free_video/ From person at mail.meteo.psu.edu Wed Jul 26 11:57:02 2000 From: person at mail.meteo.psu.edu (Arthur A. Person) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:57:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: And now, the rest of the story In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000726184838.0090d770@master.nsbf.nasa.gov> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Robert Mullenax wrote: > The main thing though is the lack of response. I know customer service is > becoming > a thing of the past, but not responding to your customers regarding a 2-week > outage is ridiculous. I can understand the phones being a problem, but what about some info on their web site? I looked and didn't see anything offhand. Seems to me there was a satellite outage some time ago and Alden used their web site to inform users quite effectively... seems to me they should do that again. Art. Arthur A. Person Research Assistant, System Administrator Penn State Department of Meteorology email: person at mail.meteo.psu.edu, phone: 814-863-1563 From sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu Wed Jul 26 12:08:44 2000 From: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu (Gilbert Sebenste) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:08:44 -0500 (CDT) Subject: And now, the rest of the story In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20000726184838.0090d770@master.nsbf.nasa.gov> Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Robert Mullenax wrote: > Okay, here is my point. Alden is supposed be a provider of data for > operational > use. How can a provider for such purposes have a 2 week outage? We had a > T1 go down at our site in New Mexico a few years back and it only took > a week to be repaired and this is in the very rural area of eastern New Mexico > AND we told them it was not a rush job. > > The main thing though is the lack of response. I know customer service is > becoming > a thing of the past, but not responding to your customers regarding a 2-week > outage is ridiculous. > ----------------------------------------------------- I agree. Here's some more information and a clarification. For you long-time UNIDATA folks, Alden sends the data through a T1 line from their Billerica, MA home to an uplink site in Monee, IL south of Chicago. Old-timers (I'm gonna get it here! ;-) ) remember how the old McIDAS feed was sent out at 9600 baud through that. In any case, that cable got cut off. MCI is working on it, Alden says, but MCI might have leased the line to Ameritech, which is complicating things. And there's a problem somewhere in there somewhere. Not that it affects me, but they don't yet know where the T1 problem really is yet, though they hope to have that pinned down this afternoon. So why are the Internet data feeds up? Simple. It's not the T1 to Washington DC/NCEP where they get the data. It's the T1 from Massachusetts to northeastern Illinois to *uplink* the data to the dish. In house, their data feeds are fine at Alden. So, they are getting the data...but the only way they can send it out is via the IDD. That having been said, lightning and thunder.alden.com are having problems independent of all of this, which is why DiFAX has been dying. But today it is dead because the NWS is having major networking problems. The NWS says they may not be back up until tonight. For what it is worth... ******************************************************************************* Gilbert Sebenste ******** Internet: gilbert at niu.edu (My opinions only!) ****** Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University **** E-mail: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu *** web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu ** Work phone: 815-753-5492 * ******************************************************************************* From sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu Wed Jul 26 12:14:23 2000 From: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu (Gilbert Sebenste) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:14:23 -0500 (CDT) Subject: DIFAX Alternatives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Jeff Weber wrote: > Unidata has tracked these issues and coordinated some options that can be > utilized when the DIFAX service ceases to exist or Alden continues with > idd transmission difficulties. > > Unidata is generating .gif imagery of these products via Redbook Graphics > and can be viewed or downloaded at: > > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/redbook/ > Just a word of warning...NWS is going to discontinue these too, eventually. > The University of Wisconsin is also generating DIFAX type products which > are available for viewing and download in postscript format at: > > http://mapmaker.meteor.wisc.edu/difaxmaps/ > > NOAA also offers DIFAX type products for viewing and download in > compressed (G4) .tiff formats at: > > http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/graph.shtml > > and > > http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/wefax/products.htm > > DIFAX will cease operations in the near future, we offer these options as > interim solutions. Thanks, but the Wisconsin site is difficult to get images from, since they are in different directories. The weather.noaa.gov site is a slow download, to say the least. It looks like I and all of us will need to look for a longer term solution pretty quick, as others have stated. ******************************************************************************* Gilbert Sebenste ******** Internet: gilbert at niu.edu (My opinions only!) ****** Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University **** E-mail: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu *** web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu ** Work phone: 815-753-5492 * ******************************************************************************* From jweber at unidata.ucar.edu Wed Jul 26 12:39:34 2000 From: jweber at unidata.ucar.edu (Jeff Weber) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 12:39:34 -0600 (MDT) Subject: DIFAX Alternatives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: DIFAX Community, The NWS has informed Unidata that it will give a six month notice to the discontinuation of the DIFAX products. That is why the word "eventually" was used. We do not know when that 6 month warning will be given. Another option we are investigating is delivering the Wisconsin products via the IDD to aid in the speed and timeliness of the delivery of these products. Thank you for your comments, -Jeff ____________________________ _____________________ Jeff Weber jweber at ucar.edu Unidata Support PH:303-497-8676 NWS-COMET Case Study Library FX:303-497-8690 University Corp for Atmospheric Research 3300 Mitchell Ln http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/jweber Boulder,Co 80307-3000 ________________________________________ ______________________ On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Jeff Weber wrote: > DIFAX community, > > The National Weather Service has informed Unidata that the DIFAX service > will be terminated eventually. Alden has encountered some problems with > the DIFAX service via the IDD, that they currently are providing. > > > Unidata has tracked these issues and coordinated some options that can be > utilized when the DIFAX service ceases to exist or Alden continues with > idd transmission difficulties. > > Unidata is generating .gif imagery of these products via Redbook Graphics > and can be viewed or downloaded at: > > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/redbook/ > > > The University of Wisconsin is also generating DIFAX type products which > are available for viewing and download in postscript format at: > > http://mapmaker.meteor.wisc.edu/difaxmaps/ > > > NOAA also offers DIFAX type products for viewing and download in > compressed (G4) .tiff formats at: > > http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/graph.shtml > > and > > http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/wefax/products.htm > > DIFAX will cease operations in the near future, we offer these options as > interim solutions. > > > -Jeff > ____________________________ _____________________ > Jeff Weber jweber at ucar.edu > Unidata Support PH:303-497-8676 > NWS-COMET Case Study Library FX:303-497-8690 > University Corp for Atmospheric Research 3300 Mitchell Ln > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/jweber Boulder,Co 80307-3000 > ________________________________________ ______________________ > > From person at mail.meteo.psu.edu Wed Jul 26 14:07:21 2000 From: person at mail.meteo.psu.edu (Arthur A. Person) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 16:07:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: And now, the rest of the story (fwd) Message-ID: On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Robert Mullenax wrote: > The main thing though is the lack of response. I know customer service is > becoming > a thing of the past, but not responding to your customers regarding a 2-week > outage is ridiculous. I can understand the phones being a problem, but what about some info on their web site? I looked and didn't see anything offhand. Seems to me there was a satellite outage some time ago and Alden used their web site to inform users quite effectively... seems to me they should do that again. Art. Arthur A. Person Research Assistant, System Administrator Penn State Department of Meteorology email: person at mail.meteo.psu.edu, phone: 814-863-1563 From poker at sysadm.meteor.wisc.edu Tue Jul 25 20:06:49 2000 From: poker at sysadm.meteor.wisc.edu (Pete Pokrandt) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 21:06:49 -0500 Subject: from David Knight regarding difax . . . In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:10:53 CDT." <200007252210.e6PMArX21575@morgan1.meteor.wisc.edu> Message-ID: <200007260206.VAA25746@sysadm.meteor.wisc.edu> In a previous message to me, you wrote: > >Message 1516: >From: "David J. Knight" >Subject: Re: gempak difax scripts >Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 21:26:08 +0000 (GMT) > > Just wondering what the status of this is >and weather we might be able to get these >scripts from you. (weather typo intentional !-) > > It would be a great service to the community >if you could contribute the scripts used. >Many might find this more convenient than >grabbing from your web site. Do you really want >to put them on the IDD and deal with resulting >support issues? It is up to you of course... >Thanks, >David David, We'd be happy to provide you (and everyone) with the scripts, though in their current state they may require more support than sending out the maps over the IDD :O , but they are a start at least. They were written by a student hourly of mine, and while they are quite well commented, there are parts of them that are written to be specific to our setup. They shouldn't be difficult to modify, just time consuming. I'll go through tomorrow and put up all of our scripts on the same web location as the gzip'd postscript maps are right now, and everyone can feel free to dig through them, modify for their own setup, etc. Pete -- +>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>+<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<+ ^ Pete Pokrandt V 1447 AOSS Bldg 1225 W Dayton St^ ^ Systems Programmer V Madison, WI 53706 ^ ^ V poker at meteor.wisc.edu ^ ^ Dept of Atmos & Oceanic Sciences V (608) 262-3086 (Phone/voicemail) ^ ^ University of Wisconsin-Madison V 262-0166 (Fax) ^ <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<+>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>+ From sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu Wed Jul 26 12:14:23 2000 From: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu (Gilbert Sebenste) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:14:23 -0500 (CDT) Subject: DIFAX Alternatives In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 25 Jul 2000, Jeff Weber wrote: > Unidata has tracked these issues and coordinated some options that can be > utilized when the DIFAX service ceases to exist or Alden continues with > idd transmission difficulties. > > Unidata is generating .gif imagery of these products via Redbook Graphics > and can be viewed or downloaded at: > > http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/chiz/redbook/ > Just a word of warning...NWS is going to discontinue these too, eventually. > The University of Wisconsin is also generating DIFAX type products which > are available for viewing and download in postscript format at: > > http://mapmaker.meteor.wisc.edu/difaxmaps/ > > NOAA also offers DIFAX type products for viewing and download in > compressed (G4) .tiff formats at: > > http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/graph.shtml > > and > > http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/wefax/products.htm > > DIFAX will cease operations in the near future, we offer these options as > interim solutions. Thanks, but the Wisconsin site is difficult to get images from, since they are in different directories. The weather.noaa.gov site is a slow download, to say the least. It looks like I and all of us will need to look for a longer term solution pretty quick, as others have stated. ******************************************************************************* Gilbert Sebenste ******** Internet: gilbert at niu.edu (My opinions only!) ****** Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University **** E-mail: sebenste at weather.admin.niu.edu *** web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu ** Work phone: 815-753-5492 * *******************************************************************************