On Wed, 12 Jan 2011, Stonie R. Cooper wrote:
Gilbert - for public consumption, the S300 is not set to ship until mid to
late March. The specs were just released, and although Raytheon and
Globecomm have tested the latest Novra solution, no test period had been
announced to the larger user community . . . and supposedly has already
passed. In other words, Raytheon and Globecomm had a big party, and no one
else was invited.
The S300 will be $75 to $150 more than the S200.
Thank you for that info, Stonie. So let me see here:
Several of us bought the S-200 which supposedly can handle everything
current (and it should), and now it's a paperweight after I was told the
S-200 could handle DVB-S2 broadcasts by Novra. From Novra support:
Hi Gilbert:
Thats good news.
Our S200 should work as is.
I've emailed Novra and got a reply, essentially, telling me to hang tight
for a bit.
The S-300 will be the NOAAport-supported receiver for the NWS
The S-300 won't be ready until mid-late March, but the new NOAAport
broadcast starts March 5, and the transition period for the old and new
broadcast ends April 3rd. As stated in the original transition
announcement:
AS TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS ARE FINALIZED AND HARDENED.. THE
APO WILL PROVIDE MONTHLY MESSAGE UPDATES VIA MULTIPLE
DISSEMINATION METHODS AS WELL AS THE NOAAPORT WEBPAGE
HTTP/COLON///WWW.NWS.NOAA.GOV/NOAAPORT/HTML/NOAAPORT.SHTML
TO AID OUR CUSTOMERS WITH THE TRANSITION.. THERE WILL BE A 30 DAY
WINDOW /MARCH 5TH 2011 ? APRIL 3RD 2011/ OF DUAL ILLUMINATION TO
ALLOW AWIPS SITES AND NOAAPORT CUSTOMERS ADEQUATE TIME TO
COMPLETE THE TRANSITION. DURING THIS TRANSITION PERIOD.
And so, being good boys and girls, we buy the S-200 early...and now we
find out that the S-300 is what is needed, I don't know if the S-200 will
be refundable now that we have it, and even worse, unless the deadline
changes, we could have days to test everything out. Oh, and those monthly
updates? Did I miss something? The website, outside of a few small things
such as satellite and characteristics of the signal, hasn't been updated
in over 5 years.
I'm being fair: the NOAAport feed is for NOAA, and everyone else is just
fortunate to be able to get it. I understand that. But, they really ought
to play nicer with the .edu community. And the .com's as well.
We're on the same team here, doggone it.
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Gilbert Sebenste ********
(My opinions only!) ******
Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University ****
E-mail: sebenste@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ***
web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu **
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