Weather Features

There are several weather features available to our repeater users.

First we have a Peet Brothers Ultimeter Ć U-100 weather station located at the repeater site which provides timely weather announcements on the repeater system. This integrates temperature, wind speed, direction, high and low temperature and rain fall rate into the repeater’s voice messages. I have programmed special weather report messages, the weather part of the repeater’s identifications, or at the top of the hour as part of the grandfather clock, and even part of the tail messages.

Secondly, the repeater will transmit alert messages direct from the National Weather Service as part of the Emergency Alert System. To do this, we have a WX250 SAME (Specific Area Message Encoded) receiver connected at the repeater site. When an alert is issued, the repeater will transmit a tone at 1395HZ which will activate the two tone pagers of the control operators. If you can decode this tone, feel free to do so. The repeater will then retransmit the alert message in realtime from the WXK67 NOAA transmuter from 162.550MHZ and then will announce the alert type every five minutes until the alert is canceled. The repeater will also change its courtesy tone, and tail messages and ID messages to let users know that there is a currently active alert.

I hope these weather features our users find useful.

To hear the current weather conditions, press “#92#”

To hear a five day forcast for the current area, press “#93#”

When there are weather alerts issued from the National Weather Service office in San Antonio, the repeater will announce that there is an alert, state the type of the alert, then give the NOAA Weather Radio Frequency. If you missed the alert, you may repete the alert announcement by pressing “#91#”

For a menu of weather safety information, you may press “#*60*” and then follow the prompts to gain the information such as flood safety, thunderstorm information, and other safety information.