WeatherStar 3000

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Contents 1 WeatherSTAR 3000 2 Standard Features 3 Optional Features 4 Timeline

[edit] WeatherSTAR 3000

The WeatherSTAR 3000 began to debut in cable head ends nationwide on Janurary 1, 1985. At that time, the FCC began a plan to create more room for geosynchronous satellites, thus The Weather Channel needed to change the way their current WeatherSTARs were receiving data. Before when the WeatherSTAR 3000 was launched, the WeatherSTAR II was in use at the time.

With some help from Wegener Communications and 2 million dollars later, The Weather Channel had once again upgraded the WeatherSTAR... Now it had become known as the Weather STAR III. When hooked up at these cable companies, the WeatherSTAR 3000 would dial-up to receive the latest weather conditions and forecasts for its local area. Then, when queued by The Weather Channel, the WeatherSTAR 3000 would override The Weather Channel's viewing signal with its current conditions and forecast broadcast product, and transmit that through cable wires to its viewer's TV sets. The WeatherSTAR 3000 performed much more smoothly than the WeatherSTAR I.

[edit] Standard Features

The WeatherSTAR 3000 is similar to the WeatherSTAR Jr., but with a pixelized font that only uses capitolized letters. The features include: Current Conditions (which tells what your current weather conditions is in your area), Lastest Hourly Observations (which shows a list of seven current weather conditions in nearby cities from your area), Conditions Across The Region (a list of current weather conditions from the nearest major city in the United States as well as some cities in Canada), 36 Hour Forecast (a texted-based forecast prediction in the next 36 hours from your area), an Almanac (which shows the sunrise and sunset times in your area, as well as the normal high and low temperatures in your area), Forecast Across The Region (a weather prediction of your regional cities), Travel Cities Forecast (a scroll of the weather forecast for the major cities across the United States), Extended Forecast (a 3-5 day weather forecast prediction for your area), 30 Day Outlook (a prediction from the National Weather Service which predicts what the temperatures and precipitation going to be like in the next 30 days), and a Tides list (which shows the time listings for the ocean tides and is used only in coastal areas).

[edit] Optional Features

There were also some special add-on features that can be added to the WeatherSTAR 3000. Two of those features include: a motionless Doppler radar map that would show the precipitation in your area and would arert viewers of tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, or any thunderstorms. The Doppler radar map would come from your nearest National Weather Service office, and would overide the video signal from the last segment from the WeatherSTAR 3000. Othough the WeatherSTAR 3000 was only text-based, it still did not provide true graffics. When the WeatherSTAR 4000 was released in 1990, the WeatherSTAR 4000 provided true graffics and it had it's own built-in Doppler radar map.

Another optional feature of the WeatherSTAR 3000 was a special local weather-detecting sensor. This sensor could pick up current weather readings in real time (such as the tempture, wind speed, etc.) Most cable offices that are far away from the nearest National Weather Service office would often hook up this handy device, but the downside of this feature is that it can not pick up any current weather conditions in real time.

[edit] Timeline

Date	Description
Early 1990	The Weather STAR 4000 debuts in select cable systems and the first signs of degration was reported. The WeatherSTAR III was renamed to the WeatherSTAR 3000.
February 20, 1991	The L Flavor Local Forecast is born.
July 1991	Dan Chandler re-records the narration for the WeatherSTAR 3000.
Fall 1992	Dan Chandler does one final set of narration for the WeatherSTAR 3000. The 36 Hour Forecast is now narrated to have come from The National Weather Service.
Early 1993	Widespread signs of degration had been reported.
Fall 1993	The Extended Forecast becomes simplified - The text forecast from the National Weather Service is replaced with a tri-column quick glance 3 day forecast. The page title for the 36 hour forecast changes from "NWS 36 HOUR FORECAST - ZONE XXXX" to just "NWS 36 HOUR FORECAST" on the first page.
April 1995	Dan Chandler's narration had been discontenued.
May 2002	The page title for the 36 hour forecast changes from "NWS 36 HOUR FORECAST" on the first page to "YOUR TWC FORECAST" on all 3 pages. This is due to The Weather Channel's discontinuation of using NOAA's text forecasts in place of The Weather Channel's own text forecasts.
December 31, 2004	The WeatherSTAR 3000 was put out of commission by the FCC because it did not have the capacity to sound an aural tone each time a severe weather alert displayed on screen. Although it was a fixable situation, it would have cost The Weather Channel millions of dollars to make such a hardware upgrade to a 20+ year old computer... hence its retirement. It lived a long life; from 1985, up through the end of 2004, it had run a span of 22 years of delivering weather forecasts, conditions, watches, warnings, and advisories. For 22 years these computers had been serving cable companies and its hardware has only been upgraded three times... not too many other computers can follow its record!