Aviation Weather Service up and running with English User Interface

#1

Since some weeks we have a service available at number 787878, where you can get the current weather and a 24h-forecast for more than 4000 airports worldwide.

Unfortunately the user interface was in German only. But now there is the same service available also in English under 787879.

We think, that it is much better while demonstrating teletype writers to visitors, guests or friends to see the printed text in a language you understand and for an airport in your vicinity.
The weather reports are created and distributed globally in a standardized format called METAR (METeorological Aerodrome Report) and TAF (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast).

If you look for „METAR“ or „TAF“ at wikipedia.org there is a very good explanation of their syntax and content.
A METAR is generated only for airports, if there is a weather observer or an automatic weather station available. Usually that includes the major international airports and the regional ones. Plus military airfields.
All airfields around the world (only very tiny ones and pure glider airstrips excluded) have a so called ICAO code assigned as an identifier. If you search at google for „icao“ plus the name of your airport, you will find it.

Of course pilots nowadays have a much faster and better access to weather reports by using the internet or special apps for flight preparation and support.
But the format of a METAR is very condensed with a limited character set and therefore very „teletype writer like“. Thus Willi (username: Fernschreiber) and I had the idea to make these infos accessable via i-Telex. To be honest: Willi did nearly all of the work, I was only helping with the idea.

Thank you so much Willi for spending some evenings and even nights to get this idea running on your servers.

And now we ask the iTelex community to try this new service:

-dial 787879
-then choose „m“ and the given options in the different menus
- or enter directly the ICAO code of an airport in parentheses, e.g. „(egll)“ for London Heathrow

Enjoy the aviation weather service,

Clemens

#2

Is this service still operating? I do not seem to be able to connect to it.

Best Regards

John

#3

Hi John,

please apologize my late reply. Yes, this service is still running. I just tested it.
But there was indeed a short period some weeks ago, where the service seemed to be down. Maybe you were simply unlucky to try to connect to the aviation weather service exactly during that time.

Enjoy 787879,

Clemens