[BC] NOAA

[Ernie Belanger]

AH NOAA...

The government has a Co-Operator program in place. It is a public/private 
sector program. Grant money is available via The Rural Electrification 
Administration which fallsunder the Department of Agriculture.  This now may 
have shifted to the Department of the Interior(DOI).  I know that DOI was 
the organization thatNOAA contracted with to administer their latest 
contract for transmitters.

The COOP program is a 50/50 matching grant. The local organization is 
responsible to build (per NOAA SPECS) the transmitter site. Once it is 
finished it is then "Gifted" back to the Government.  There are two 
different ways that the maintenance has been handled.  In areas where the 
"National" Maintenance Contract is in effect INTEC usually picks up the site 
under their contract. In areas where contract maintenance is used the 
Co-Operator usually has to provide at least a year as part of the station 
build etc.  I've seen it work both ways.  I have also been involved in 
situations where the county or state or local government owns and maintains 
the equipment.

In any case everything starts at the National Program Office in Silver 
Springs MD.. They have the national plan which shows the holes in the system 
and the plan to fill those.  There is occasion where the Regional Office or 
the local program office may not be in the loop as to the plan.  I know NOAA 
was looking into a number of lower power "Gap" fillers. These would fill 
small voids without causing interference with the higher power stations 
which are broadcasting in the area.

I can tell you that the folks in the Program Office are friendly and welcome 
every bit of help in building out the network. I know for a fact that over 
the years Weather Radio has been treated like the bastard step child of 
Weather Service and NOAA. They seem always the first to get budget cuts and 
one year they were cut to the point where they had to use money that should 
have bought equipment to maintain the network because their operations and 
maintenance budget was cut out by NOAA. It was a political move. Apparently 
someone up the NOAA chain wasn't happy with the Dissemination Branch 
Director, who retired shortly thereafter.  They were probably miffed because 
he wasn't afraid to tell them about themselves for treating Weather Radio so 
poorly... but I digress.

I would put in a call to Robert Valient (VA LENT) the NOAA Weather Radio 
Program Manager to discuss the situation with him. 301-713-1736  Sorry, I 
dont' recall his extension at the moment. But if you get the automated 
answering system just press Zero and it will go to another staffer's 
extention they can get you him.

If you have any other questions emial me privately or on the group.  I would 
venture that I probably am one of, if not the, expert in this area  on the 
group.

Best to All

Ernie Belanger

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin C. Kidd CSRE/AMD" <kkbroadcastengineering at gmail.com>
To: "Broadcasters' Mailing List" <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: [BC] NOAA

> George,
>
> I built a new NOAA station here to cover southern TN.  The Nashville NWS
> office recognized the need and wanted to put a tx here but had no money.
> Our local SkyWarn group raised the money and I installed the equipment.
> IIRC, NWS picked up all reoccurring costs after installation and
> continues to operate the site.
>
> The weather radio rules are really weird when viewed from a broadcast
> prospective...  They license by TX output with no regard for antenna
> gain.  We run a kw tx into a huge high gain loop antenna.
>
> GC wrote:
>> We have tried with no success to get NOAA weather radio in this area. 
>> Attemps to get the Amarillo WX office to let us put in a Barix type unit 
>> and feed directly to our studio and the answer is NO. We have been told 
>> "enough people have not died" We depend on unattended stations to get us 
>> alerts and there are times it does not happen. NOAA and EAS is BROKE. Now 
>> there a a station that makes a mistake and gets fined?
>>
> -- 
> Kevin C. Kidd, CSRE/AMD
> http://www.kkbc.com
> http://www.amgroundsystems.com
> Local:        931-766-2999
>