Old school radar

[Tim Vasquez]

I have been digging through some of my really old data and found this old example of cutting edge radar for hobbyists (I kid you not). This example is for November 17, 1985 at 1635 UTC.

SDUS24 KWBC 171635
 + 51 046
 
 
 999               1          111221
 99......           .   122   .123.
 .      .           22213322111123.
 .      .           223333321.1 2 .
 .      .         911233332432 22  .
 .      .          2122223551.     .
 .      ..         12222233  .     .
 .        ......... 111   ....     .
 .                    ....   .     .
 .                    .     {STOP}SJ
 .              2      .      .
 .                     .     .
 .                      .    ....
 .                      .    .   ...
 .                       .         .
                        22         .
                      221.   ..
                      22...... . ...
                     44.        .
                     3.
  ....               3
  .   ..            .
 .     .          ..
        .        .
         .      ..
          .     .
           .    .
           .    .
           .    .
            ..   .
              .....
 
                  2
                 22
 
 
 
 + 91 046

For anyone that's confused, it's a radar chart of the southern U.S. The dots are borders; numbers are intensity in VIP (scale of 1-6).

Tim

 

[Steve Miller]

Really makes one wonder what radar will look like in 2025. We will look back at 88D products and think they are prehistoric.

 

[rdale]

I remember getting excited when I found a hole in the Radio Shack dialup system (I forget the name) but it had the FAA604 feed and I made a program that displayed those numbers in color on my Commodore 64, or printed out a sheet on my Okidata transfer printer... Ahhh...

 

[Mike Smith]

The product plotted was called MDR for 'manually digitized radar.'

The grid was a subset of the LFM (limited fine mesh) numerical model grid. Once each hour, when the radar operator took his observation (which occurred between :25 and :35) he placed a clear plastic grid over his radar and noted the highest VIP value in each grid box. It was then added to his regular RAREP.

 

[rdale]

I also remember stumbling across the individual radarsite background maps in the Federal docs part of my library's basement... Getting my Dad to laminate them - and spending WAY too much money on CompuServe dialing in every hour and plotting them with dry-erase marker.

 

[Joel Wright]

Definitely shows how spoiled we have become to be able to just plop in the ol' computer chair, and within seconds have high quality radar data to look at.

 

[Mike Johnston]

As I recall, The Weather Channel (in the early days), used this manually digitized data to create their own composite radar displays. They were composed of little tiny color-coded circles.

 

[czenzel]

Very interesting Tim!

It is amazing how radar and technology has changed over time.

Today we now have Level 2 and Level 3 NEXRAD data, and that's even going to the new GIS formats (shapefiles, world files, and GIF overlays).

I wonder how it is going to change in a few years also. Maybe it all becomes GIS and a new technology will develop again after GIS is fully implemented by NOAA!

Thanks,
Christopher Zenzel

 

[Benjamin Rock]

I have been digging through some of my really old data and found this old example of cutting edge radar for hobbyists (I kid you not). This example is for November 17, 1985 at 1635 UTC.

SDUS24 KWBC 171635
 + 51 046
 
 
 999               1          111221
 99......           .   122   .123.
 .      .           22213322111123.
 .      .           223333321.1 2 .
 .      .         911233332432 22  .
 .      .          2122223551.     .
 .      ..         12222233  .     .
 .        ......... 111   ....     .
 .                    ....   .     .
 .                    .     {STOP}SJ
 .              2      .      .
 .                     .     .
 .                      .    ....
 .                      .    .   ...
 .                       .         .
                        22         .
                      221.   ..
                      22...... . ...
                     44.        .
                     3.
  ....               3
  .   ..            .
 .     .          ..
        .        .
         .      ..
          .     .
           .    .
           .    .
           .    .
            ..   .
              .....
 
                  2
                 22
 
 
 
 + 91 046

For anyone that's confused, it's a radar chart of the southern U.S. The dots are borders; numbers are intensity in VIP (scale of 1-6).

Tim

Ok, so what do the nines represent?

 

[rdale]

Pretty sure that was missing data.

 

[Leah Robertson]

Wow, and I thought the old DIFAX radar images were from the stone age.

Very interesting find! It's also a reminder on how far technology has come in the last 20 years, particularly from the mid/late 90's during the information super-highway explosion.

 

[mikedeason]

Ok, so what do the nines represent?

Reaching back 20 years into the recesses of my mind, the 9's represented precip of unknown intensity that was thought to be light.

 

[Tyler_Costantini]

The cool thing is that even new images are coded more or less the same! ya you have more values and things... but you could easily write some code to turn and image or for that matter level2 data into something like that... I was to young to remember much of that.. I do remember using RCM's Radar Coded Messages..

 

[Dan Robinson]

I think that's Baron's $5/month Pond Rower Package. Ascii radar and undecoded metars.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Wow, and I thought the old DIFAX radar images were from the stone age.

Actually they are... those charts go back to the late 1960s. They were actually hand-drawn up until around 1977 or so. Unfortunately for us mere mortals, there was no way to get them without signing up for a $1000/mo contract with AT&T Long Lines Services. I knew hobbyists with NOAA Weather Wire, but not DIFAX.

Tim

EDIT: I just found this link: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n5/weatherfacsimile.html which has info on getting fax maps. They quote a $222 installation with $33 monthly fee, which is not even close to the astronomical rates I was quoted in 1987.. maybe those cheap rates are before deregulation.