I noticed Pirate Weather - http://www.pirateweather.com/ - that fine service which gave us voiced weather forecasts, had stopped working on my station - the downloaded file was not the usual MP3 but just garbage for the past few days. I went to their web page and it looks as if they have thrown in the towel.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a different weather service? Preferably one that you can automatically download the audio from.
Thanks!
I use NOAA MP3 files. You can download files from their website at this link.
They even have an FTP page. The one for my area is at this link.
Depending upon where you are located, there are probably MP3 files for your area.
The files cover not only local forecast but separate files also for the extended forecast, marine forecast, etc.
I like using this service as it makes it easy to put the weather into an automated program.
I use a utility called WGET along with Windows Scheduled Tasks to update my local forecast file every half hour. The batch file I use to do this goes like this:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo off
REM Change this next line to match your content directory.
cd C:Documents and SettingsRobert FelmlyMy DocumentsMy Received PodcastsNOAA
REM For sanity, lets remove any files that
REM already exist in the directory.
del CLESAFNW4.*
REM Now lets use wget to get the latest file.
wget http://www.erh.noaa.gov/cle/mp3/CLESAFNW4.mp3
REM Go back to where we started.
cd c:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search this site for WGET. It's a free download on the internet. You simply unzip and install in the Windows directory. The batch file is activated automatically by Windows Scheduled Task utility.
MRAM,
Thank you for a very thoughtful reply and excellent directions. Unfortunately the NWS does not keep the files for our area updated - regularly I find the audio is 48 hours or more out of date, which is really sad since they have a staffed office less than 5 miles from here. That is why I had used Pirate weather for the past three years.
That's surprising. I would have thought that any NOAA weather broadcast would be current at least within a 24 hour period. Of course I'm in Ohio where weather forecasts are good for about an hour.
What area are you near? I'd be interested in checking out the audio they are posting.
I only had trouble once with their service. Turns out that the file server was not accepting uploads from the production workstation. The forecasts were almost a week old. I notified NWS and they appologized for the situation and had it corrected very soon afterward.
I am located in southern Maine, about 5 miles from the Gray NOAA weather office, and near the Blackstrap NOAA transmitter. In all fairness to NOAA they do tell you on the site that their podcast service is still in the trial phase.
I am beginning to play around with windows narrator, and see if I can get it to read the output file from weatherbug cleanly. I am sooo not a programmer though...
Check out this link: NOAA AUDIO.
They have listings for several areas around Maine. The ones I listened to seem to be current.
Here is a link for the Hourly Weather Roundup for Blackstrap Hill.
And I looked for NOAA files from Jackson,Ky but with no luck.
I think ill tinker around with a relay circuit and one of those s.a.m.e enabled weather radio's. Kroger here seem's to keep the Midland N.O.A.A. wx radio's in stock while walmart and rad shack does have wx radio's but they come built into a set of frs/gmrs hand helds.
Also something i thought of when i was posting this, there are some cb radio's out there that have wx radio's built into them.
In the midlands and cobras the weather radio is on a circuit board that is usually a 2 x 2 board with a small receiver and a few wires.
Two wires go to the pa section while the others are power and the band switch to select wx1 wx2 wx3 etc.
Me and my friends would have a cb radio that was rewired so when we needed to broadcast the weather warnings over the cb we could just flip a switch and key the mic. NOAA would broadcast on 11 meters instead of holding a microphone to weather radio.
I may try to rip one out of a old cb and modify it with a relay to take over regular programming when there is watches and warnings.
And I looked for NOAA files from Jackson,Ky but with no luck.
I think ill tinker around with a relay circuit and one of those s.a.m.e enabled weather radio's. Kroger here seem's to keep the Midland N.O.A.A. wx radio's in stock while walmart and rad shack does have wx radio's but they come built into a set of frs/gmrs hand helds.
Also something i thought of when i was posting this, there are some cb radio's out there that have wx radio's built into them.
In the midlands and cobras the weather radio is on a circuit board that is usually a 2 x 2 board with a small receiver and a few wires.
Two wires go to the pa section while the others are power and the band switch to select wx1 wx2 wx3 etc.
Me and my friends would have a cb radio that was rewired so when we needed to broadcast the weather warnings over the cb we could just flip a switch and key the mic. NOAA would broadcast on 11 meters instead of holding a microphone to weather radio.
I may try to rip one out of a old cb and modify it with a relay to take over regular programming when there is watches and warnings.
Maysville and Owenton look to be the closest NOAA sites assumming you are in Mercer County. But still over 50 to 140 miles away.
Not exactly local weather info.
Right next to I-75.
Our weather comes from 162.550 mhz out of Jackson,Ky.
They used to have the phone number that started out (606) 666-xxxx now that number has been changed due to some people feeling uncomfortable with the prefix and its been awhile since they have announced the number on the air.
MRAM - the podcasts posted by NOAA in this area appear to be updated about twice weekly - looks like you checked them at the right time 😉
I have emailed them and asked nicely if this could be fixed, no response yet. Too bad, because I like their forecasts and the synth voice is darn good. But I will keep checking, maybe they will make this "experimental" service, as they phrase it, a formal offering.
Thanks everyone for your feedback and ideas!
You are right! Even though the source I referred to is not the PodCast service, the files are a few days old. It would seem that whoever is running the show up there is not very timely with updates.
I'm curious... Are the "on air" NOAA broadcasts current all the time in your area? They stay on top of that in my area except for that one instance I related to where they had a computer problem and upon notifying them it was corrected very quickly.
Maybe your friendly email to the NWS, NOAA coordinator for your area will garner some answers. Worked for me and they were very courteous in their response.
I set Zara to stream the link for NWS Tampa Bay Weather for 3 minutes. Even though it picks up in the middle of the stream, 3 minutes generally is enough time to hear the local forecast. We have a lot of other weather as well, including tide info, etc..
I used to stream the files also but occasionally had problems with Zara hanging when playing the stream. Sometimes the list would go on to the next item even though the WX file was still streaming.
I tried lots of variations with the silence detector, end of song detector, length of stream, etc. but still had problems.
I know some have had problems using WGET but I like the fact that the file is stored locally on my PC rather than streaming. I don't have to worry about how long or short the file runs. I download the file once per hour to stay current.
I'm using WGET on three different PC's and so far so good.
Wow! I using Zara on 2 different machines ans I have never had that problem.