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=============================================================================== Robb Kambic Unidata Program Center Software Engineer III Univ. Corp for Atmospheric Research address@hidden WWW: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/ =============================================================================== ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 15:34:03 -0500 (CDT) From: Gilbert Sebenste <address@hidden> To: address@hidden Subject: Ku-Band outage follow-up (fwd) Here is the latest from Alden. ******************************************************************************* Gilbert Sebenste ******** Internet: address@hidden (My opinions only!) ****** Staff Meteorologist, Northern Illinois University **** E-mail: address@hidden *** web: http://weather.admin.niu.edu ** Work phone: 815-753-5492 * ******************************************************************************* Dear Sir, As you are probably aware, Alden experienced a major outage of the T1 telephone circuit between Alden's facilities in Massachusetts and the satellite uplink facility in Illinois. This interrupted the satellite broadcast of Domestic Plus service, International Data service, FAA604 service, High Resolution service (GRIB data), Lightning Data service and the Satellite Imagery Service. After a significant amount of work with MCI and Ameritech (the local telephone company serving Illinois) the circuit was finally restored Monday, although we had a brief interruption of service on Tuesday due to some fine tuning of the T1 circuit. Your satellite receiver should now be receiving data, with the data lights for each data service on the receiver flickering from red to orange or red to green. You may have to power off your receiver and then power it back on to reset it. You may also have to reboot your PC to restart the ingest task of your computer if new data is not being received by the PC. If after trying these 2 steps you are still not receiving data, please contact our network control center at: Tel: 800-225-9492, ext. 2329 Fax: 508-366-3898 Email: address@hidden We are making changes to ensure this long an outage never happens again. In the past when we had an outage, we've often had the problem fixed before most of our customers even noticed there was a problem. However, with approximately 200 customers effected this time, we realized the need for a means of contacting all of our customers quickly to advise them of a problem and keep them informed as we progressed. During this outage we found email was the best and most efficient method to do this, so we will be putting together email lists of all customers by the data services they receive. This will also provide a convenient way to advise customers of changes being made by Alden, the National Weather Service, etc. We are also looking at some type of Internet backup for our customers who must absolutely have data all the time. We will send out further information on this capability as we further design and test this approach. We cannot adequately express our deepest concern as to how this outage has impacted you, our customer. We realize Alden's long reputation for delivering weather data in a reliable and timely manner has been significantly damaged, however we are committed to restoring your confidence in Alden, not through these words, but by our actions as we work to improve the services we provide to you. With our sincerest apologies to you and to your customers, David K. Doyle Chief Executive Officer