[GreenKeys] Shouting the weather
Robert Nickels
ranickels at gmail.com
Tue Aug 29 11:41:26 EDT 2023
AP and UPI newswire teletype services are mentioned often but many radio
and television stations and newspapers had the "weather wire" teletype
machine sitting alongside. While the news services also carried
weather information, many stations felt it was worth the extra expense
to get the weather straight from the source, and in real time. Of
course, showing off a separate machine dedicated to weather info was a
good bragging point when it came to impressing potential advertisers in
farm country.
I knew the mechanical TTYs had been replaced at some point by modern
technology, but having been away from that world for decades I was
surprised to learn that it took til 2016 for the weather service to
finally start using lower case, which by then was interpreted as yelling!
https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/nws-heritage/-/stop-shouting-the-forecast
One thing I can say for sure from working part-time at radio stations
during my college years is that the ALL CAPS format along with the
yellow paper we kept the weather wire stocked with made life a bit
easier for us "rip and readers"...
73, Bob W9RAN
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