20031201: NAWIPS/GEMPAK software and data availability to Vietnam

>From: Mai Nguyen <address@hidden>
>Organization: National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting of Vietnam
>Keywords: 200312020023.hB20N4p2027742 GEMPAK LDM IDD

Mai,

>The attached email has been sent to Steven Chiswell and advised to be
>resent to address@hidden due to his absence in the office.

Steve is on vacation right now.  He will be back in the office on
Monday, December 8.

>Dear Mr. Chiswell,
>
>My name is Mai Nguyen, National Center for Hydro-Meteorological
>Forecasting of Vietnam. I am currently attending the Pacific Training
>Desk at Honolulu Weather Forecast Office. I am very interested in using
>the NAWIPS software in Linux Environment (on PC)  as that being used
>here in Honolulu WFO.
>
>I am advised by Steven Schotz (NCEP) to contact you for information
>about the availability of the software to be used after I coming back to
>Vietnam, and the possible data support from UNIDATA (e.g. data format,
>data stream).

In order to download GEMPAK from Unidata, you must first register as a
Unidata user.  This is easily done through our web site:

http://my.unidata.ucar.edu

After you have registered as a Unidata user, you will be allowed to
download GEMPAK and other packages through the 'Downloads' link that
you will see on the left hand side of our homepage.

>And please advise me on the terms and conditions for
>getting that software and support.

All Unidata products and services are free to our core community
members.  Support, on the other hand, is provided only to our core
community (Unidata is a very small organization).  All participating
institutions are encouraged to signup for one or more of the topical
email lists that we maintain, and to post questions to those lists.
Experience has shown that the Unidata community is extremely generous
in extending help in the use of our packages and the data we relay
to non-core commumity members.

As far as getting a real time feed of weather data, you will need to
have a reliable, high-speed internet connection at your institution.
Can you give us some information on your site so we can runs some tests
of the connection that you have?  I am looking for the fully qualified
hostname and IP address of the machine on which you will be running the
LDM.  With this information, we can run internet connectivity tests
using tools like traceroute, mtr, and pathchar and get a good idea of
how good a connection there is between your site and one or more of the
sites that may be asked to feed you data.  For reference, we are
currently feeding realtime weather data to several sites that are
electronically distant from the US. Two notable sites are Hong Kong and
Brazil.

>Thank you very much and I am looking forward to your reply.

We look forward to working with you in the future.

>Best Regards.
>Nguyen Chi Mai
>
>Temporary address (until 20Dec2003)
>        Pacific Trainning Desk
>        Honolulu Weather Forecast Office
>        Phone:     (808) 973 5290 or 5270
>        Email:     address@hidden
>
>Permanent address
>        National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecast
>        Research for Application group
>        4 Dang Thai Than, HoanKiem, Hanoi, VIETNAM
>        Phone:     +844 9330942
>        Email:         address@hidden, address@hidden

Cheers,

Tom Yoksas