Are you referring to the original WeatherSTARs (first gen to the 4000)? Those had the option to connect weather instruments to them in order to have "hyper-local" observations; otherwise, they took NWS data from the satellite. Most operators didn't utilize this feature, unfortunately; I think it was a pretty cool idea. However, the need for it isn't as great now, especially with the technology they use to generate observations for every zip code -- I forget the name of it, but it's pretty interesting how it's generated.km1125 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2020 3:52 pmAnd that's like a 3rd or 4th generation of the Weather Channel's version of "weatherscan"!! I installed a lot of the first, second and third generations. I don't have any examples of the 1st gen, but it was basically a crawl across the bottom of the screen and four or five graphic pages that would cycle though. One would be current radar, one current weather observations, one weather forecast and I think one was "cities near you". You also needed to connect (and maintain) local weather instruments to those early generations. Now they just use local NOAA weather data stations. Even before The Weather Channel units were installed, we had a weather radar feed from DTW and had that on a channel by itself, or shared with some other content.
Allow me to get a bit geeky if you will: TWC's Weatherscan has had only two equipment-related iterations; the WeatherSTAR XL and the Intellistar, which is the version that's on-air to this day. The XL had no option to connect a weather station to it, and the same goes for the Intellistar. All data comes from TWC over satellite or the Internet. Originally it was all NWS data, but in the early 2000s (like '01 or '02), it switched to being exclusively TWC generated data. Also, they don't use NWS sites for observations anymore -- they now use that proprietary system that comes up with observations. Same with forecasts; those come from TWC as well. Now as far as graphics go, it actually is the fourth iteration.
It's a lot of fascinating equipment they use for it all. In fact, some people I know have managed to get these units functioning again! It's really neat to see them alive again.
Sorry for going off-topic, it's nice to see someone who dealt with this equipment!