Grlevel3 Price

[Marcelo Chaplin]

Itall starts with the vehicle. I currently drive a black, 1999 Ford ZX2. Going down the road, this 4 cylinder car can manage about 33 mpg. With gas prices they way they are currently, this is a very nice feature to have. However, the car is nearly a decade old, and has just over 100,000 miles. I'll be upgrading to a Ford Fushion in the near future.

Inside the car is where the fun begins. To manage the electrical equipment, I have a home-made laptop/camera mount, which is bolted to the front seat of the car. The laptop portion rests on a rotating arm, which locks into position. Branching off the side, I've merged an old tripod mount to the piping. This is where my camcorder will rest a majority of the time.

The camcorder I'm using is the Canon HV-30. This is an High-Definition camdorder, which records on Mini-DV tapes. I chose this camcorder because of its excellent low-light performance, ability to record video on the mount while driving (Mini-DV tapes), and the prices was right. For taking still photographs, I have the Canon 40D. I still have a lot to learn about this camera, but I'm absolutely amazed at it's performance and picture quality. It takes very professional looking picures.

To power the electronics, I have a 400 watt Whistler power inverter. To supply current to the inverter, I run two, hot and ground, 8-gauge wires from the battery to the inverter. Both 8-gauge wires have in-line fuses, next to the battery. To be safe, I have 20 amp fuses in the fuse-holders. Thanks to Dave Flory and the Stormtrack Equipment forum for helping me set this up.

The think-tank of the operation is my HP DV6000 laptop, running Windows Vista. Vista is nothing but a pain, as I've run into a number of incompatiblity issues with the software. I've magaged to work my way around most of these issues though. I'll have both my camcorder and my phone connected to the laptop. This is so I can connect to the internet on the road for data, and stream video to my website.At the present time, I have Alltel with tethering enabled for internet on the road. Alltel was my preferred choice, since they offer unlimited data transfer at a cheap price.

The HP TV Tuner fits directly into the built-in express card slot on the laptop. This tuner has a port where I can connect a component video source. To make use of this feature, I take the "Video Out" from the camcorder and connect it to the tuner. This allows me to simultaneously record video on the camcorder and the computer, and to upload video-caps to the web. To upload the video-caps, I currently use EysSpyFX, a free webcam software.

My browser of choice is Mozilla Firefox. To analyze data, Scott Lincoln and I have created a chase page for low-bandwidth users. This page offers links to Just the .gifs, .jpgs, etc. on our favorite weather sites. For analyzing data on a highly variable cellular internet connection, where time is everything, this is a nice feature to have. To view radar, I use GRLevel3, with GPS support.

The GPS receiver I'm using is the Earthmate LT-20, which came with Street Atlas 2008. To make use of my GPS in other software, I use the Delorme Serial Emulator. This had some issues with Vista, so I had to install a different driver to get the emulator to work. With that up and running, I can load my GPS position into GRLevel3 and Spotternetwork . The sofware updates my GPS position to a placefile which can be viewed in the Gibson-Ridge radar software.

The only hickup in this process is tricking windows into thinking that I'm connected to an external monitor, rather than the tranmitter. Without the trick, windows will not output the video through the S-Video port. To complete the trick, a small wire must be connected from pin-hole 1 to pin-hole 3. That way, when you press the button to connect to an external monitor, windows will receive the signal back.

Watches will now show up on issuance even if Probability data hasn't been released. Now it won't seem like the Placefile is "lagging behind." I always set it to wait for Prob data to be released before showing up on the radar. Now it will show up even if the NWS hasn't released Probability data yet.

Welcome to the new Josh 3D Placefiles website. I have developed many placefiles over the past year and some of you have expressed great interest in using them. I decided to allow open access to most of them for the cheapest price possible.

There are a few reasons these placefiles aren't free. The time and resources dedicated to maintaining a server for placefiles is pretty much a full time job. Not to mention the time that goes into designing the icons, developing new placefile ideas, coding and testing the placefiles, and so on.

I am confident that my placefiles are the best. Many seasoned Weather Researchers, Storm Chasers, and Emergency Managers have expressed very positive feedback regarding my placefiles. A majority of these individuals had/have subscriptions to other Placefile providers.Through the beta-testing process, I noticed that not only is my graphic ability superior to other resources, but also my unique way of constructing my placefiles is much better.

I try to be online as much as possible so Customer Support, in most instances, will be real-time. I'm always available to help answer your questions when I'm online. If you prefer email, you can email me here.

Storm chasing is broadly defined as the deliberate pursuit of any severe weather phenomenon, regardless of motive, but most commonly for curiosity, adventure, scientific investigation, or for news or media coverage.[2] A person who chases storms is known as a storm chaser or simply a chaser.

While witnessing a tornado is the single biggest objective for most chasers, many chase thunderstorms and delight in viewing cumulonimbus and related cloud structures, watching a barrage of hail and lightning, and seeing what skyscapes unfold. A smaller number of storm chasers attempt to intercept tropical cyclones and waterspouts.[3]

Storm chasing is chiefly a recreational endeavor, with chasers usually giving their motives as photographing or video recording a storm, or for various personal reasons.[4] These can include the beauty of the views afforded by the sky and land, the mystery of not knowing precisely what will unfold, the journey to an undetermined destination on the open road, intangible experiences such as feeling one with a much larger and more powerful natural world,[5] the challenge of correctly forecasting and intercepting storms with optimal vantage points,[6] and pure thrill seeking.[7] Pecuniary interests and competition may also be components; in contrast, camaraderie is common.

Although scientific work is sometimes cited as a goal, direct participation in such work is almost always impractical during the actual chase except for chasers collaborating in an organized university or government project.[8] Many chasers also act as storm spotters, reporting their observations of hazardous weather to relevant authorities. These reports greatly benefit real-time warnings with ground truth information, as well as science as a whole by increasing the reliability of severe storm databases used in climatology and other research (which ultimately boosts forecast and warning skill).[9] Additionally, many recreational chasers submit photos and videos to researchers as well as to the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) for spotter training.[10]

Storm chasers are not generally paid to chase, with the exception of television media crews in certain television market areas, video stringers and photographers (freelancers mostly, but some staff), and researchers such as graduate meteorologists and professors. An increasing number sell storm videos and pictures and manage to make a profit. A few operate "chase tour" services, making storm chasing a recently developed form of niche tourism.[11][12] Financial returns usually are relatively meager given the expenses of chasing, with most chasers spending more than they take in and very few making a living solely from chasing. Chasers are also generally limited by the duration of the season in which severe storms are most likely to develop, usually the local spring and/or summer.

No degree or certification is required to be a storm chaser, and many chases are mounted independently by amateurs and enthusiasts without formal training. Local National Weather Service offices do hold storm spotter training classes, usually early in the spring.[13] Some offices collaborate to produce severe weather workshops oriented toward operational meteorologists.

Storm chasers come from a wide variety of occupational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Though a fair number are professional meteorologists, most storm chasers are from other occupational fields, which may include any number of professions that have little or nothing to do with meteorology. A relatively high proportion possess college degrees and a large number live in the central and southern United States. Many are lovers of nature with interests that also include flora, fauna, geology, volcanoes, aurora, meteors, eclipses, and astronomy.[3]

The first person to gain public recognition as a storm chaser was David Hoadley (born 1938), who began chasing North Dakota storms in 1956, systematically using data from area weather offices and airports. He is widely considered the pioneer storm chaser[3] and was the founder and first editor of Storm Track magazine.

The first coordinated storm chasing activity sponsored by institutions was undertaken as part of the Alberta Hail Studies project beginning in 1969.[14] Vehicles[15] were outfitted with various meteorological instrumentation and hail-catching apparatus and were directed into suspected hail regions of thunderstorms by a controller at a radar site.[16] The controller communicated with the vehicles by radio.

In 1972, the University of Oklahoma (OU) in cooperation with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) began the Tornado Intercept Project, with the first outing taking place on 19 April of that year.[17] This was the first large-scale tornado chasing activity sponsored by an institution. It culminated in a brilliant success in 1973 with the Union City, Oklahoma tornado providing a foundation for tornado and supercell morphology that proved the efficacy of storm chasing field research.[18] The project produced the first legion of veteran storm chasers, with Hoadley's Storm Track magazine bringing the community together in 1977.

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