[OZAPRS] New APRS Weather Warning service for Australia

[Geoff]

Folks,

 

As some of you may be aware, we have been working on a project in the
background to establish an APRS Weather Server to disseminate warning
information via APRS, in a similar method and format to the NWS messages in
the USA.

 

After several months of on again, off again scripting, testing and
frustration, we finally have something that is ALMOST ready to be let loose
on our national APRS network.  The system is known as WXSVR-AU and will
generate area messages, objects and plain text messages that will be
targeted at areas affected by current warnings from the Bureau of
Meteorology.

 

Full details of the project are online at  http://wxsvr.aprs.net.au
<http://wxsvr.aprs.net.au/>   

There are still some sections of the site that are as yet incomplete, but
the information that is there should provide a teaser of what is coming your
way, and how to prepare to handle the data.  We would appreciate it if IGate
operators could configure their systems to gate the relevant area messages
to RF to maximize the benefits of this system.

 

The data stream is not yet publically available - however I'm hoping by end
of November the last few bugs with the protocol implementation will be
resolved, and at this stage the WXSVR-AU stream will be allowed into the
wider APRS-IS.

When it is, it will be available via the standard APRS-IS streams.

 

Since the protocol used is identical to that used in the USA, the standard
NWS clients for UI-View and other applications can be used to display this
data.

 

 

Hopefully get the shapefiles uploaded this week and swing the data stream
over to the live network soon after.

 

Any comments, questions etc welcome.

 

Geoff  VK2XJG

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