• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

NWS using machines to launch weather balloons in Alaska

Randy Jennings

Randy Jennings

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May 18, 2013
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833
Anchorage Daily News 4/8/2018 -
"The National Weather Service plans to install the Finnish "Autosonde" stations to release weather balloons and collect data, beginning in the Southeast community of Annette next month, and ending with eight communities later in Nome, in August 2019. Each costs roughly $1.2 million to install.

Traditionally, weather balloons have been launched by humans from the rural and sometimes remote weather stations manned 24 hours, seven days a week by three staffers each.

Alaska's National Weather Service forecast stations have been short-staffed for years, at rates higher than is common nationally. The weather service said it is difficult to fill the positions. The employees' union said the posts remained unfilled on purpose. And last year the agency started pilot testing automating human jobs in Alaska with technology that releases weather balloons multiple times a day."

Another interesting thing is they used funds from a FCC frequency spectrum auction to pay for these systems.

Full story at: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/wea...eplacing-alaska-jobs-with-automated-stations/

The link in the story to the Vaisala Autosonde system no longer works, but I suspect it is this they are talking about: https://www.vaisala.com/en/products...r-measurement-devices/soundings-products/as41
 
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