HRN 373: Improving the CWOP - the Sunday Seminar at the 2017 DCC on Ham Radio Now
Channel: HamRadioNow
Date: 2017-12-11

This is Part Two of the Sunday Seminar at the 2017 TAPR DCC.

Part One was in HRN Episode 372 (immediately preceding this episode), and both are on the topic of the Citizen Weather Observer Program - all those weather stations that you and your friends have.

In Part One, Gerry Creager N5JXS described the station components, what data they generate and how NOAA uses it, optimal positioning of the components and stuff. 

Here in Part Two, Gerry is looking to TAPR and hams to help improve the CWOP. There's a lot of detail, but it boils down to two elements:

- Better Data
- Lightening Strike Reporting

These are two action items, and at the end of the talk, TAPR President Steve Bible recruited two TAPR members to lead the effort to identify what new data the CWOP needs, then figure out how to generate and forward it (APRS is a big part of data distribution, but it was never designed for this), and look into methods and maybe hardware for providing lots more rapid, detailed lightning strike data. Yes, we are making the sausage here, and you can grind some if you like.

The effort is just getting started, and as you'll hear at the end of the episode, HamRadioNow doesn't have all the contact data for hams who want to participate. We'll update it as we get it on the HamRadioNow.tv web site (on the Episode 373 page.. sorry, no link available as podcast is being produced). 

Links: 

Citizen Weather Observer Program: http://wxqa.com/
Gladstone Weather Quality Reporter: http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/
HamRadioNow Web Site: https://www.hamradionow.tv/