Baron ThreatNet Plus

[Robert Edmonds]

To be fair, though, I don't think you can blame the Baron XM WX system for no radar in Big Bend since there is no radar coverage there at all (NOAA or private), even if you could manage to find internet connectivity down there and had GRLevel or other, you still would not have had any radar coverage for the area between Marathon, Marfa, and the Big Bend tip. The best you can do there is to try and find some wifi perhaps at the Study Butte hotel and look at some Mexican radar (Chihuahua) at various websites to gauge arrival of some storms from the SW, then keep your fingers crossed.

I tend to try and avoid the crowds when possible and as such get well off the beaten path often, and take my chances there, and having to rely on cellular data is an exercise in futility once you meander too far away from the larger roads and population areas. Cellular coverage is much better than 5 years ago, but there is still too much area with only voice/text coverage, if that.

Actually I later downloaded the archived data, and had the wxworx not used their composite low res filtered data there was actually the capability see the storm. Yes the scan would have been ridiculously high and distant from the site, but it was there. It was fine without it, but I was able to get cell service ~20 mins before entering the park, even way the heck out there. I even used data from cellular sources longer than the barons that day, before losing a cell signal. My main point is not about the reliance on data, but that it's rare when I could not get by (or get by better) with out the barons, and have been thinking of no longer using it in future seasons. Especially since it seems they killed the ability for you to put the radio in vacation mode.