Wed October 21, 2009 - Continuing to fine tune the new gear. Today there is now a sensor tracking the temperature of the water in Twin Lakes. You can find the readings in the graph section for Pullman Point - Channel 1 readings are the water temperature. Within two weeks there should be another sensor online on Channel 2 for the soil temperature at Pullman Point.

Saturday October 10, 2009 - Been a rather long time since there has been an update of this blog. Today we put a new primary weather center online - an Oregon Scientific WMR968_WMR968N system which has two display centers (touch sensitive)....one located in the control room while the other is in main facility. We have put the Lacrosse unit into standbye mode. The new sensors are located in different areas excepting the rain gauge which is located on the end if the dock. The temperature humidity system is located in a much more protected area out of direct sunlight and should give more reliable reading. The anemometer has been located high atop the tv tower at about 30 feet about the ground. The Lacrosse unit may be put online with some Linux software in the future as a supplement to the new units.

KE5JJC has supplied a new Yaesu 7900 transceiver and a Diamond antenna system for dedicated transmission of APRS weather information to the surrounding area. The system has connectivity with Jackson and Mobile. Also available is additional communication now on GMRS with station WQKW356.

Our prediction for this winter - tis the start of the new ice age. Make sure you have plenty of food for the pups!

Sunday Aptil 12, 2009 - I suppose this looks like a quarterly update....The last few weeks have been spent rebuilding network routers and switches which took an EMF pulse from a tornado up in the air during a storm in late March. It damaged the gear sufficiently that they all needed replacement. I also lost the audio board in one machine and the network card in a second. As well the aging multicam switcher took a direct hit. Couple this with the normal work load and things are just starting to get a bit of normalacy. Three different recording devices have captured the pulse and are undergoing anlaysis so a better understanding of the phenomena can be take place....this in itself is a major break through as the systems functioned well past the storm without the network capability.

Also going on is a simplification of our multiple websites....the number of domains is being reduced so that we can focus on our core businesses. This makes good since in the current economic recovery (which is happening) while reducing the manhours in non-prime areas. It has taken years to define a long term path for the future but the decision to focus on areas that can produce the most benefit for people as a whole has become the single path. Better to be the best in a limited number of areas rather than mediocre in many.

So with all this said and done bear with me as I improve the gear.......Remember a good sensor receiver system also makes a good antenna for lightning.....comes with the territory - and with writing the book on advanced weather studies.

Monday January 12, 2009 - New gear online this week - working out some settings and have more to do - now available in chart and text form the actually radiation readings here in our Petal location. I'm still debating if this server needs to have the HD adjusted in a reformat but it is up and running. Since this is the first night of data every minute and the first test of the new sensor and software in live conditions (no testing here lol) we shall all see together what issues might exist. Also have the burst EMF running now in live time with scrolling data display updated continuously. The actual webpage will be adjusted in the next few days for the EMF display. Magnetic and Weather Sat data is now on the same machine. The new color weather sat pics are impressive. This is a beta test of the new software and I expect to update from the free version to the standard version within two weeks. This will improve the picture quality especially on passes that are distant and narrow in bandwidth. So for the first time we now have data feeds in real time for all systems. Note we will be improving the camera quality for the webcams with some new HD cameras. Watch for details.

Monday January 5, 2009 - Happy New Year - another start to a year as we push towards 3 years with this blog. With this week we have added some new features to the website - we now have all data in real time as it arrives - wefax, wxsat photos, magnetic, etc - as well we have added color processing to the sat photos that we receive here from the polar orbiting satellites. We have also recovered our archive files from our old server drives so we now can go back three plus years with our data here in Petal. We have also been adding new servers here in Petal with increased processing power and we have more to go. So look for all sorts of new data feeds from local sensors. We would also like to thank all of you who have been supporting our research and endeavors. Real glad we can provide you with the most accurate weather information in South Mississippi!!! Watch for our 2009 Annual Report due out this month.

Saturday Sept 13, 2008 - Made a few modifications on the weather menu - The Wefax link is now going directly to the web distribution page at NOAA for the wefax pics. We still are maintaining the capability in house to receive the informaiton however we would like to take the receive unit and put it to use on some other tasks....like slow scan television reception. Also the weather satellite reception will be shifted to a different machine in an attempt to improve the overall picture quality. So you may see some interruptions with this switch. The changes are coming about in order to better utilize the resources on hand especially with the traditional severe fall weather coming up soon. New gear is simply not an option at this time due to the increased fuel costs and overall increase in operating expenses expected over the winter months due to a colder than normal winter.