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From: dwl@hou4b.UUCP (D Levenson)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: weather information
Message-ID: <1326@hou4b.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 10:07:07 EST
Article-I.D.: hou4b.1326
Posted: Mon Feb 18 10:07:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Feb-85 03:25:23 EST
References: <996@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 27

Weather Services Inc (WSI) of Boston, MA. provides a very
comprehensive weather database with dial-up access.  They can be
called via their own 800 number, or thru Tymnet and Telinet.  You
can call at 300 or 1200 bps, and the charge for connect time, the
last time I asked, was $1.00 per minute at 300, $2.00 per minute at
1200.  There is a minimum billing of 1 hour per month.  You may
share an account with other users, if you expect to use less than
the monthly minimum.  (You pay the bill, and collect from the
others.  They'll even give you separete user names and passwords,
and give you a detailed billing statement to facilitate this
activity.)

Their weather service includes all aviation weather (current
observations, area forcasts, terminal forcasts, winds aloft with
temperature, radar summary charts, convective activity Sigmets,
etc.) and a lot of general weather info as well.  Their graphics (as
used in radar summary charts) are produced with the normal ascii
character set, and can be viewed on any CRT or hard-copy terminal. 
A complete pre-flight breefing takes 3-5 minutes at 300 baud.

Is it worth is?  That's up to you.  I've never received a busy
signal when attempting to dial up on weekends.  They even claim to
be in the process of setting up the necessary interface with the FAA
to allow you to file IFR flightplans on line!

Dave Levenson
AT&T-IS, Holmdel