On Wed, 2005-04-27 at 10:20 -0700, Dale Kelly wrote: > Do you actually believe that services such as Accuweather and TWC > could provide viable product lacking the weather data supplied by > the several government agencies and derived from their multibillion > dollar network of sensors, including the many satellites with varying > capabilities? If someone must pay for this information, lets begin with > Accuweather and TWC. Did you bother to read my reply, or should I copy/paste it again? I don't support what they are doing, but people like you are foaming at the mouth saying they do nothing but repackage NWS data and have no other source of data when in fact that is untrue. And no, if we don't have to pay for it, then Accuweather shouldn't have to pay for it either. They can charge whatever they want - doesn't mean I *have* to use it. Its what we call a free market, remember? However, if I am paying for NWS data as a taxpayer, then I fully expect to get it, and commercial interests attempting to close this so they can greedily extract more money from me shouldn't be allowed to do so. Here's a list I pulled from opensecrets.org, showing soft money contributions from Accuweather to the senator pushing this bill (some are not relevant). Must be nice to get between $250 and $2000 every couple of months for over 5 years. This makes me sick. I wonder if the last one on the list ('homemaker') is any relation! Santorum, Rick MYERS, A ROSS WORCESTER,PA 19490 ALLAN A MYERS 2/8/1999 $1,000 Santorum, Rick Santorum, Rick MYERS, BARRY LEE DR STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 8/31/2004 $250 Santorum, Rick MYERS, BARRY LEE MRS STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 8/31/2004 $250 Santorum, Rick MYERS, CHARLES J PITTSBURGH,PA 15241 RETIRED 8/12/1999 $200 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 6/30/2000 ($300) Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 9/10/1999 $1,000 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 8/18/1999 $250 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 9/10/1999 ($700) Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N DR STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 12/31/2003 $1,750 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N DR STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 5/16/2000 $1,000 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N DR STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 6/7/2000 $300 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N DR STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 10/9/2003 $250 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOEL N DR STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 ACCU WEATHER 12/31/2003 $250 Santorum, Rick MYERS, JOSEPH PHILADELPHIA,PA 19106 7/26/2000 $250 Santorum, Rick MYERS, PEGGY STATE COLLEGE,PA 16801 HOMEMAKER 9/10/1999 $700 > Also, in this discussion, we've failed to identify the major client and > a major justification for the US government's investment in it's vast > world wide weather gathering capability. This information is mission > *critical* to the military. The military isn't a client, it is a partner. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's satellites merged into NOAA operations in 1998. But you fail to mention the fact that there are NWS services offered over satellite for which the military has little interest (like EMWIN). Also, I hope you don't honestly believe that the military relies on 10ft/pixel satellite imaging for mission critical operations. They have separate networks for that, with *no* civilian access. People like Accuweather repackage and beautify feeds like EMWIN. You may have software to parse 3000 text files in a directory, or you may want to hit a website with a bitmap summarizing those 3000 text files. > A similar discussion could be about private use of the GPS > satellite system, which is also critical military hardware and is widely > commercialized. Should a government licensing fee be charged for > it's commercial use? Perhaps that might be more profitable than > auctioning our devaluing broadcast spectrum. The military uses their own frequencies on the Navstar satellites. In the event of some sort of threat the civilian frequencies can be disabled. So this one isn't as cut and dry as a 'everyone gets the same data, lets charge for it' scenario. Cheers Kon ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.