TWC-local on the 8's

[Joel Wright]

Well, I had a satellite dish installed this week to take place of my previous cable. I liked the cable I had, but I couldn't pass up a deal that was being offered, and one of my buddies is a dealer for them as well.

Anyway, after it was hooked up I realized that my "local on the 8's" from the Weather Channel was gone lol. Now, instead of showing the local forecast, along with radar and other graphics it just shows a collage of different weather maps from around the country. Not only that, but one of our local TV stations had a local weather channel on 24hrs a day with their radar (very cheap radar but still kind of nice since it was actually live) that is gone now too.

It really doesn't matter that these are gone, since the internet provides very good radar and other forecast material. Not to mention all the computer models for making your own forecasts. It's just kind of weird not being able to see the good old Weather Channel local forecasts like I used to.

Not that I really paid much attention to these forecasts the past five years or so anyway, but after seeing them for over 20 years it's kind of sad not to have them available at my home anymore.

 

[Caleb Lawrence]

I know how you feel. With the declining quality of The Weather Channel content over the years, the Local On The 8's was the only redeeming quality left. I don't see why satellite providers can't have some sort of smart chip, and be able to forecast your location like cable can. In effect, it'd automatically play the forecast and conditions registered to your service.

 

[Ronnie Bradley]

I remember back in the olden days of the mid-80's on C-band satellite, it was just a blue screen and muzak. Shortly thereafter, they had some background graphics like geometric shapes, waterfalls, and whatnot. Still, no graphics, scrolling temps, or anything until about 1989 or 1990 (black screen w/ scrolling cities - high low temps - conditions).
But the feasibility of local weather via DISH / DirecTV could be done but it would take some additions to the receiver box. Let's see...
upon getting a channel package per se, the receiver with aftermetioned chipset would report the lat/long back to DISH / DirecTV, then on the weather channel side, their computers can send data back based on lat/long to the sat receivers.
I know the cable companies have a special box that they use for the local weather segments.