[GreenKeys] 5 and 6 letter codes

[tony j. podrasky]

weather wrote:
> My .02
> 
> Most of the 5 number code I copied in the 60's and 70's was with strong
> signals from the South Florida station WBR-70.  This was also known as
> CARMET. Carribean Meteorlogical Teletype.  It originated from the U.S.
> Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) in Miami.

I used to print WBR-70 on a regular basis. I wish I had known that
the code groups could be interpreted by joe-average.

> There was also much other plain language weather information.  For a real
> weather geek (like me) seeing the reports from the Navy recon planes flying
> to Hurricanes and getting the data before it was "officially" released
> through the Hurricane Center was too cool.  (Hey it was a simpler time!)

When TTL came into vogue, and was easily available (and cheap) from PolyPaks,
I built several SELCALs. Each one more complex than the previous as I
mastered logic circuits. The final one could decode 8 different keywords
that would appear in WBR-70's clear text - such as "hurricane", "tropical",
"special", "features", "depression", and a few others that would prefix
an interesting transmission.

I had a large world map on my bedroom wall and would use hatpins to mark
a developing storm and follow it thru tropical depression, to hurricane,
and until it faded away. I had a 28-KSR in the basement so I could leave
my equipment on and let it print during the night without awakening anyone.

Now a-days I download the METAR reports from NOAA and wrote a program (LINUX)
to decode them into English.

UE,
W6ESE - tony
NNNN
ZCZC

-- 
Tony J. Podrasky | I've been thinking about all my cool electronic
                  | gadgets and how they've never brought me any real
                  | happiness. I guess it's because I don't have
                  | enough of them.                   -Matt Diamond