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Author Topic: So, what's up with all of these NOAA Weather Radio outages?  (Read 1406 times)

Offline ThaDood

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I do on occasion check this page out, since supposedly our tax $$$$$'s are paying for these, but scroll down and check out how many outages there are as of late, (5/28/2022).   https://www.weather.gov/nwr/outages   Weird... 
I was asked, yet another weird question, of how I would like to be buried, when I finally bite the big one. The answer was actually pretty easy. Face-down, like a certain historical figure in the late 1980's, (I will not mention who, but some of you will get it, and that's enough.) Why??? It would be a burial that will satisfy everyone: (1) My enemies will say that it will show me where to go. (2) On the same point, I can have my enemies kiss my butt. (3) It will temporarily give someone a place to park a bicycle. See??? A WIN / WIN for everyone.

Offline Shortwave_Listener

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Re: So, what's up with all of these NOAA Weather Radio outages?
« Reply #1 on: May 29, 2022, 1715 UTC »
It’s not much better here in Canada. Our equivalent is Weatheradio Canada. Our local AM Weatheradio Canada (the VHF one is fine) has been of air for at least several years. I phoned and asked about it a few weeks ago and found they had been unaware of the problem (for SEVERAL YEARS). I have a feeling it might be hard to fix because the transmitter is a LPB AM-5 and low power broadcasting (LPB) is out of businesses so now there is nowhere to service their products.
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Offline ThaDood

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Re: So, what's up with all of these NOAA Weather Radio outages?
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2022, 0440 UTC »
Oh yeah!!!! I've always thought that made some nice sense to have a Weather FREQ broadcasting on the AM BC band. Well, if that is indeed a LPB AM-5, unless that took a big lightning hit and fried that, a decent tech shouldn't have too much trouble replacing anything on that transmitter. Even if a new crystal is needed, a DDS oscillator will do very nicely on that. I know this, since a friend of mine is running his AM Carrier-Current station with an AM-5 and a DDS OSC for his selected FREQ. So, far, rock solid for 8 years with him on that. So, can be done.
I was asked, yet another weird question, of how I would like to be buried, when I finally bite the big one. The answer was actually pretty easy. Face-down, like a certain historical figure in the late 1980's, (I will not mention who, but some of you will get it, and that's enough.) Why??? It would be a burial that will satisfy everyone: (1) My enemies will say that it will show me where to go. (2) On the same point, I can have my enemies kiss my butt. (3) It will temporarily give someone a place to park a bicycle. See??? A WIN / WIN for everyone.

Offline MDK2

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Re: So, what's up with all of these NOAA Weather Radio outages?
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2022, 1952 UTC »
I've noted a couple of recent outages for 162.55 which is the big one for Denver (300 W I think, whereas I'm under the impression that most transmit at 100 W.... I could be full of it though, except the 300 W part). Hopefully not something that happens during tornado/microburst season.
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Offline redhat

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Re: So, what's up with all of these NOAA Weather Radio outages?
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2022, 1714 UTC »
Oh yeah!!!! I've always thought that made some nice sense to have a Weather FREQ broadcasting on the AM BC band. Well, if that is indeed a LPB AM-5, unless that took a big lightning hit and fried that, a decent tech shouldn't have too much trouble replacing anything on that transmitter. Even if a new crystal is needed, a DDS oscillator will do very nicely on that. I know this, since a friend of mine is running his AM Carrier-Current station with an AM-5 and a DDS OSC for his selected FREQ. So, far, rock solid for 8 years with him on that. So, can be done.

You're dealing with Canadian government.  These are the people that are so uptight that when a new station signs on, they have to have a representative from IC come out and sign on the transmitter.  I highly doubt they will retrofit an old transmitter with parts that would void its type acceptance.

+-RH
« Last Edit: June 01, 2022, 2356 UTC by redhat »
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Offline Pigmeat

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Re: So, what's up with all of these NOAA Weather Radio outages?
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2022, 2127 UTC »
Oh yeah!!!! I've always thought that made some nice sense to have a Weather FREQ broadcasting on the AM BC band. Well, if that is indeed a LPB AM-5, unless that took a big lightning hit and fried that, a decent tech shouldn't have too much trouble replacing anything on that transmitter. Even if a new crystal is needed, a DDS oscillator will do very nicely on that. I know this, since a friend of mine is running his AM Carrier-Current station with an AM-5 and a DDS OSC for his selected FREQ. So, far, rock solid for 8 years with him on that. So, can be done.

You're dealing with Canadian government.  These are the people that are so uptight that when a new station signs on, they have to have a representative from IC come out and sign on the transmitter.  I highly doubt they will retrofit an old transmitter with parts that would void its type acceptance.

+-RH

The Canadian's are a picky bunch. When the transmitter that served the little towns along the inside passage from Vancouver to the Alaska border gave up the ghost, a bunch of hams in the region retrofitted a Kenwood transceiver to do the job 24/7 at their own cost and labor. Radio/TV Canada rejected it w/o firing it up for testing into a dummy load.

Offline ThaDood

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https://swling.com/blog/2022/08/noaa-weather-radio-needs-some-serious-upgrades/    I wouldn't mind if my tax $$$$$'s went for that. Question is, will it?
I was asked, yet another weird question, of how I would like to be buried, when I finally bite the big one. The answer was actually pretty easy. Face-down, like a certain historical figure in the late 1980's, (I will not mention who, but some of you will get it, and that's enough.) Why??? It would be a burial that will satisfy everyone: (1) My enemies will say that it will show me where to go. (2) On the same point, I can have my enemies kiss my butt. (3) It will temporarily give someone a place to park a bicycle. See??? A WIN / WIN for everyone.