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Mark
Twain grumped that, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody
does anything about it!” If he were still around, he might be as
wound up as I am watching two new services vigorously compete to provide
boaters with a level of weather information never before seen at sea.
XM WX Satellite Weather and The
Weather Channel Marine (TWCM) may not be able to flatten big seas
or redirect severe squalls, but they can give you the knowledge you need
to do something about it.
XM WX and TWCM each
use dedicated satellite channels and receivers to deliver a deep, constant
stream of information to your boat. No downloading files, fiddling with
weatherfax machines, or half-listening to tedious VHF loops, waiting for
the particular forecast or buoy report you need. This weather is simply
waiting there whenever you want it, fresh as a daisy. Some of it (like
animated Nexrad radar) may be freely available from government sources,
but accessing it while on the water has, until now, ranged from difficult
to impossible. Other elements (like storm-cell intensity, speed, and course)
are proprietary products coming from each service’s deep well of
meteorological and processing expertise.
I imagined XM WX and
TWCM as a whole new category of marine weather when they were first announced
more than a year ago (see “Live Weather at Last,” July 2003).
Now the data is actually streaming down from the satellites, and I’ve
had a chance to work with it for a few weeks using each service’s
PC viewing software. (XM WX hardware costs $750, TWCM’s $1,995; subscriptions
are $50 to $65 per month depending on duration.) The screenshots on the
first page of this column barely hint at the bounty of useful information
I found. But before going into more detail, let’s look at the complex
of companies arrayed around these new services.
XM WX is a joint venture
of XM radio and WxWorx, a spinoff of commercial weather vendor Baron Services.
TWCM is the brainchild of The Weather Channel cable TV station and its
sister content provider WSI. Baron and WSI are both major suppliers of
customized weather guidance to media, business, and government. Now their
two teams want to use these new satellite delivery systems to extend themselves
not just into boating, but also into general aviation, emergency services,
and anywhere else that folks crave real-time weather information. They’re
also competing for partnerships with marine electronics manufacturers.
As noted last month, Garmin is featuring XM WX (XM audio, too) as the
lead option in its new line of networked multifunction displays. Maptech’s
new high-end i3 system, twin to the Sea Ray Navigator, offers integration
with the PC version of TWCM. WSI has announced a partnership with Raymarine,
which sounds as if it will bear fruit in more than one upcoming Raymarine
product line. Both WxWorx and WSI tell me that other partnership deals
are close to completion.
Next page >
Part
2: Talk about real-time weather! > Page 1, 2,
3, 4, 5,
6, 7
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