Modernizing a legacy chaser

[Skip Talbot]

I'm back. Kind of. I thought there might be some old school folks lurking here who have undergone a similar journey and can help.

The only significant changes I've made to my setup in the past 15ish years is a camcorder upgrade and a couple new phones. My current setup is:

• A Dell Inspiron laptop circa 2013(?) that is battered to hell but hanging in there.
• 22" inch Dell touchscreen monitor, connected via HDMI and USB
• Delorme Street Atlas 2014. The software was discontinued the next year, and as you can imagine, is starting to diverge from reality.
• Grlevel3/2 with Allisonhouse placefiles.
• Sony FDR-AX100 camcorder circa 2014. It's been an excellent 4k shooter, and amazingly they still go for a $1000+.
  • FilmTools Suction Mount
• Canon 60D DSLR circa 2010 with an EFS 10-22, my go to for tripodded timelapse.
• A handful of GoPros and now an Insta360 x3 which I use sporadically for b-roll, transitions, and "just get a shot" backup
• Samsung S25 Ultra, my newest tech, of which I'm becoming increasingly dependent on as it manages multiple roles as my:
  • Wifi hotspot and only data source
  • Still shooter/handheld camera
  • Radarscope
  • Routing with audible directions

I'm happy as a clam just using this setup until the wheels come off and the world moves on around me. However, I'm now recently tasked with leading field projects that require some effort toward maximizing our success. And, to be honest, I feel like I'm becoming a dinosaur out there. Is there a path toward modernizing legacy chasers like me? Maybe some of you had a similar setup and that you've since supplanted?

I feel like the obvious answer is just using a mobile device with Google Maps and Radarscope, but I still find this to be a serious trade-off from the older tools like Street Atlas and GrLevelX, and I'm compromising on features in exchange for ease of use. For example, having offline support of the entire Plains grid and on a large display with high contrast colors. GrLevelX, as clumsy as it is to use a legacy Windows app on a touchscreen, still sports more features that Radarscope. I feel like I'm handicapped when I go out with just my phone. Even the cameras, sure I could finally spring for a full frame mirrorless or something, but for video I don't want to have to compromise on how solid the camcorder is in this role, recording hours non-stop without having to babysit or manage settings.

Open to suggestions.

I realize that modernizing my abilities to forecast, pick targets, and intercept is the real battle. That's a whole different topic though, and probably why I'm not really "back". The answer to all of this might be downsizing not just my setup, but chasing in general. I aspire to be one of those long-time veterans you're happy to see is still making it out there once in awhile.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

StarLink mini and service would be my suggestion. You can pause service when you're not using it for $5/ a month.

$50/ mo for 100 GB or $165/ mo for unlimited.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Hey Skip, great to see you back here! Yes there are some of us old-school chasers here, but it may be some of the younger ones that will have more insight into tech upgrades. Although, sure, if any veterans have taken that journey, they will have a better sense on what you really need and what may not actually be much of an improvement.

Sorry I can’t personally help. As a chase vacationer from the east coast, I’ve never been in a position to outfit a chase vehicle with a laptop and all… We ran Baron ThreatNet on a laptop sitting on the back seat for a few years, but ultimately found it too temperamental to get up and running many days so we did away with it. Now I actually enjoy being more minimalist - an iPad with RadarScope and Google Maps, and an iPhone with the same apps, helpful when I need two screens at once. It’s a pain to not have radar and roads in the same app, but I haven’t found the radar apps that have roads to be as good as RadarScope. For pictures and video, I still have a digital Nikon that does both, but it’s over 10 years old, and I find myself not even taking it out, instead defaulting to the iPhone for ease of use, including the ability to use it with one hand and immediately share experiences with family and friends back home. I guess you could say I’m becoming more of a minimalist chaser as I get older.

Your situation is obviously different if you’re going to be leading field projects, so hopefully others on here will be able to offer guidance. And who knows, maybe I’ll get inspired by some of those ideas to upgrade myself!

Not sure how much new technologies really impact forecasting, targeting or intercept. Unless for forecasting you’re talking about getting up to speed on the latest models? Curious in general about your last paragraph; does this imply that you haven’t been chasing in recent years? What do you mean about “…downsizing not just my setup, but chasing in general”? Curious how this would balance with leading field projects, and just curious in general what you’ve been up to chasing-wise since we haven’t seen you here for a while! Hope you’ll stick around!

 

[Warren Faidley]

I keep a dash / suction cup mounted iPad connected to Starlink, dedicated to Google or Apple Maps only. Maps are "life" in critical situations and most apps with both mapping and radar overlays. e.g., Radar Omega (RO) are prone to crashes or slow-downs at critical times. I use map "direction up" perspective for fast road calculations. Having the ability to see traffic slowdowns or stoppage on maps is fantastic. I use my front-mounted iPhone 16 Pro to to monitor apps like RO, Radar Scope or a little-publicized app called MyRadar Pro to get a fix on my position in relation to cells or to estimate cell movement / splitting. I use a second iPhone 16 Pro for communications, weather data and for handheld video / picture grabs. I prefer not to use large, bulky 35mm digital camers except for long lens shots and night (lightning phtography). iPhones suck at almost all telephoto ranges, especailly through high DP haze.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I've come to realize that no matter how many years pass since my heyday, the mounting accumulation of tech advancements still tend to leave us facing tradeoffs. That is, the newest, sleekest gear in 2026 still has at least one or two key downsides relative to what most of us ran in 2005 or 2010. The full picture of tradeoffs tends to get more favorable for new tech over time, of course. Most often, the new gear is far more compact and convenient, yet still falls short of the old school gear in certain aspects of resilience and hardiness.

Where this leaves me is often being grudgingly seduced by the convenience of the new, while still grumbling about what I miss about the old. I'll outline the progression I've followed in several areas of gear, which will hopefully be useful for somebody somewhere, even if most is idiosyncratic to me.

Mobile data: I used dedicated USB modems and/or JetPack hotspots from 2008-2014 or so, sometimes with external antennas and amps. I gave in and started using my phone hotspot around 2015, and have never looked back. For me personally, this is not a tradeoff I've regretted. I don't know how many fringe areas I've lacked coverage that I could've recovered using external booster gear, but my gut feeling is not nearly enough for how annoying and finicky that gear was.

Navigation: I was a DeLorme + yellow puck guy from when I started up until circa 2015, when I replaced my RAM Mount laptop setup with a Surface Pro 2 tablet. Starting then, I shared my smartphone's GPS location via Bluetooth and ported it into Windows via GPSGate for quite a few years... an admittedly flaky and frustrating setup. But one key mitigation technique I decided on was to have an old school Garmin GPS mounted on my windshield at all times. I still use it to this day, even though the Garmin is probably 10+ years old. Having a reliable, always zoomed-in display with no other apps or distractions dedicated to immediate situational awareness of surrounding road options is a non-negotiable for me that's worked well. Starting in 2024, I made the big leap from the Surface Pro 2 to an Android tablet that allows me to use Google Maps, but I still kept the Garmin.

Computers/tablets/data display: probably the toughest choice, because there are major tradeoffs involved in every possible configuration, from my perspective. It's quite frustrating and a little sad that's still the case in 2026, but I don't see it ever changing, at least for those of us who grew up on a laptop setup with GRLevelX. GR hasn't meaningfully changed in 20 years... and it's an absolute rock. The epitome of "tried and true enough to trust with my life" -- in stark contrast to newer, sexier options that never instill that degree of confidence in me. I haven't personally seen a need for the bulk, mounting challenges, power challenges, and off-axis viewing problems of a laptop since I started using a Windows tablet 10+ years ago. But the dilemma of using Windows (Surface Pro or similar) vs. Android/iOS is excruciating. The latter is infinitely better for touchscreen-optimized navigation (with offline Google Maps downloads), better for browsing, better for integration with your vehicle's audio system, better for multi-app split-screen layouts... but it doesn't allow you to use GR. And without GR, you're left with mobile radar apps that completely cater to normie users and fall far short in the area of resilience and contingencies. Some of this likely stems from limitations imposed by the mobile OSes themselves, which make it nearly or completely impossible for a radar app to, e.g., keep the last 20 scans of data cached on local storage and still available to loop after you lose your mobile connection. This means in practice that, for the past couple years since I ditched Windows entirely, I can lose access to practically all radar data as soon as my mobile coverage drops out if I'm foolish enough to switch out of RadarScope for a second and then switch back. This is very nearly a dealbreaker... except that having everything powered via USB-C, and everything outside of radar data far more convenient and accessible than it was in Windows, is so intoxicating that I can't go back now. If mobile coverage were still like it was 10-15 years ago, this wouldn't work... but I find it's so rare for me to lose mobile coverage on AT&T and Verizon for more than 3-5 min at a time that I can stomach this tradeoff.

Video: I'm weird. I started off with a crappy compact camcorder in 2012, then moved backwards against the usual tide of tech progress (convenience/form factor) by switching to an a7r2 mirrorless body for video in 2021. It's inconvenient, unweildy, and I've botched plenty of footage the last 5 years because of it. But when I'm able to set it up on the dash mount or tripod, nail focus, and let it roll, the results are far better than I would've gotten with another prosumer camcorder -- at least in lower light.

Stills: I've focused on stills over video my whole career, and I shot DSLRs exclusively from 2006-2025. I've gone through multiple brands and countless lenses, but the core process never changed. This offseason, I finally gave in and jumped on the mirrorless bandwagon -- at least for one of my bodies (I've gone from a 3 DSLR setup to 2 DSLR + 1 mirrorless). What spurred this change? Simple: my stills of the career-highlight Gary, SD, tornado on 2025-06-28 were compromised too badly by needing to use high ISO (and suffering camera shake blur on most of the frames where I tried to get greedy there), since the situation was far too run-and-gun for tripoding. When I reviewed and processed those images, the best set of my career to-date, I decided on the spot that I needed to spend whatever it took to make sure I was never again constrained like that in a TOTY scenario. The Nikon Z7ii I picked up is not meaningfully better than my D850 or even D810 in its inherent sensor image quality. But it offers in-body stabilization, which is what I was after. That means I can use any lens on it and expect at least 2-3 stops better than unstabilizied handheld performance, and more like 5 stops for most native Z lenses. I'm confident my stills of Gary would've been substantially better, with more keepers, if I'd just made this jump last offseason. Of course, the Z7ii eats through battery like nobody's business and has several other drawbacks like difficult focusing near dark... once again proving that new tech advancements never come free.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Yeah, the Starlink development is interesting to follow. I'm sure it's a great add depending on how and where you chase. I'm not sure I really need it though. I don't recall data connectivity being much of an issue the past couple seasons, so addressing that isn't super high on my list. Like in the downsizing thread, I haven't used an external antenna, amplifier, or router for years. My phone just works most (nearly all?) of the time. I don't stream or chase hurricanes though. I'm squeamish about putting a panel that costs several hundred dollars on the roof, and then driving it into large hail, or having it drop out when I'm core punching through the forward flank. :\

Maps are "life"

I agree, and this is my biggest concern. My maps are out of date, and stuff is going to stop working on me sooner or later too. So what is the best solution for mobile mapping and routing currently? Google Maps and Apple Maps? I like the idea of having more than one tablet, each dedicated to a task, and yet having to run a whole series of devices also sounds like a regression to the old days. Maybe I'll try running a mapping solution on just my 22" touch screen, and then running a tablet with radar.

What do you mean about “…downsizing not just my setup, but chasing in general”? Curious how this would balance with leading field projects

I'm growing weary of this in a lot of ways. The thought of driving to Oklahoma for a big event fills me with dread. Grinding every setup like a junkie just to get tubes feels pointless, and having to maintain a stream just to entertain the hordes on the internet seems far worse still. So I find myself chasing less, but then missing big days and fumbling the times I do go out, and that makes me want to chase even less like a negative feedback loop. Having a more constructive reason to do this beyond the occasional cherry picked vacation would be great, which is why I sign up for these projects. But modernizing my abilities as a chaser includes more than tech. There's the issue of skill, of which I also feel like I'm falling way behind.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Where this leaves me is often being grudgingly seduced by the convenience of the new, while still grumbling about what I miss about the old

Super insightful post, Brett, thanks. This is exactly what I was looking for, and I think I'm pretty much on the same page.

I went through a few GPS pucks since the original Yellow Delorme, then a bluetooth unit, but these little black Globalsat USB units have been pretty much bulletproof. It's zip tied to my windshield vent, and GpsGate just picks it up immediately. I'll keep that as long as I'm still using my laptop for sure.

And like you said the other bulletproof tech is GrLevel3. It's amazing that this is the thing that goes all the way back. I started using it in '04. It reminds me a lot of general aviation, where a lot of the tech outside of the avionics hasn't changed in the past 75 years. Still, GrLevel3 is a relic of its day and could be improved. Having to click through several menus and then around on the map to get your GPS going and set to your location, that should be automatic. App starts, boom there you are with that Nexrad site loading. Reboots or app restarts on the go are a pain because of this. Having to set markers to measure distances, also a pita. I should be able to just poke the screen, and the status bar has that distance to the GPS. Even Radarscope isn't the best here. The most solid mapping software with data overlay I've ever used is ForeFlight, an app for flying. It necessarily has to be the most mobile friendly and feature capable software, and it has great solutions for all of these issues. I wish there was a storm chasing version of it.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I'm growing weary of this in a lot of ways. The thought of driving to Oklahoma for a big event fills me with dread. Grinding every setup like a junkie just to get tubes feels pointless, and having to maintain a stream just to entertain the hordes on the internet seems far worse still. So I find myself chasing less, but then missing big days and fumbling the times I do go out, and that makes me want to chase even less like a negative feedback loop. Having a more constructive reason to do this beyond the occasional cherry picked vacation would be great, which is why I sign up for these projects. But modernizing my abilities as a chaser includes more than tech. There's the issue of skill, of which I also feel like I'm falling way behind.

I get it - the feeling of dread, grinding every setup, etc. But I think “the occasional cherry picked vacation” actually helps with that. I wouldn’t want to “grind every setup like a junkie” all season, but when it’s time-bounded - trying to optimize a two or three week window - it seems more reasonable and tolerable. Chasing is simply the priority for the duration. But even on these relatively short vacations I’ll pass on certain setups that just don’t seem worth the drive.

I can’t imagine you ever “falling behind” Skip. You’ve forgotten more than many chasers will ever know. And “falling behind” implies it’s a competition. It’s really not, unless you’re trying to be a YouTube streaming star. Otherwise, your only competition is yourself.