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Northwest Ohio Skywarn Program
Here in NWOhio, we use both a ham radio backbone link on 6 meters(through an existing 6m repeater) and the telephone to contact the CLE NWS(90nm to the East). The backbone link is good until we get storms between us and CLE, then reception starts to fade and we, many times, must use the phone. Of course, we use the phone during times when the radio is not manned(such as with a quick pulse storm). It takes about 1/2 hour to get someone on the radio on the CLE end once they call.
CLE NWS has about 8 groups reporting into them via the backbone. Here in NWOhio, we collect reports from 9 counties (many of them running their own 2m nets) and then get that info to the NWS CLE.
The info coming back from CLE is usually ok, but, IMHO, tends to be a bit too filtered. I've been told that the ops do not think they should say everything over the air that they are hearing at the NWS. These are the types of things we need to know... By the above, I mean that if the lead forecaster is considering issuing a warning for a particular county because he is concerned about a particular storm... we need to know that, so we can get our spotters looking in that direction BEFORE the warning is issued. We also usually do not get many(if any) public service reports that CLE might get via land-line. Sometimes, this is what a warning is based on. On radar indicated SVR warnings, especially for hail, it would be helpful to get an idea of what NWS is seeing, not just the text of the warning. After all, WE are the people on the ground in that area. What might CLE be seeing on the radar? 2" hail and 90% possibility, .75 and 60%, or what? In other words, is a storm possibly a marginal event being looked at from a radar 90 nm away, or does it have a have a larger potential than that? That's the kind of info that we need to be telling our spotters, not just reading them the text of the warning! We don't usually have this problem when they are looking at rotation...
The above paragraph explains why the radio link doesn't always do the job, and why we have had to call the NWS to get a "real feel" for what they are thinking(and what the hams are thinking too). Maybe it's a problem with the ham side, or maybe it's a problem with the system itself...I'm not sure. However, we will be talking about this next Saturday at our bimonthly meeting with the NWS.
To our North(SE Michigan), their backbone collects county reports though a 440 link. They also have operators at DTX(and it takes about as long to get them on-site when NWS calls). According to the county liaisons, the rest of the concerns pointed to above are also occurring in SE Michigan...
Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor Email: chtaylor@ix.netcom.com
Coordinator, NW Ohio Skywarn Packet: N8WGB@W8HHF.#tol.oh.usa.na
Asst. EC, Lucas Co. - Skywarn
NWOhio Skywarn Net page: http://wcnet.org/~n8xsf/main.html