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Wink news new Doppler radar


brianpr3

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One-time WINK employee here. Old doppler was rarely used when I arrived in 2006. Archive video from Hurricane Charley in 2004 had heavy use of it. My understanding is it was near it's end of life, several high-rise condo buildings were built across the street from the station in the mid/late 2000s- and those buildings blocked it from being effective to the north. It may have still been a source on the switcher when WINK went HD in 2007 - but the output was SD and graphics didn't match the look. 

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On 6/21/2022 at 9:19 AM, Recovering Producer said:

One-time WINK employee here. Old doppler was rarely used when I arrived in 2006. Archive video from Hurricane Charley in 2004 had heavy use of it. My understanding is it was near it's end of life, several high-rise condo buildings were built across the street from the station in the mid/late 2000s- and those buildings blocked it from being effective to the north. It may have still been a source on the switcher when WINK went HD in 2007 - but the output was SD and graphics didn't match the look. 

Honestly I’m not surprised. Unless you’re a powerhouse station, most stations rely on NWS radars now because they are not only way more advanced, they’re consistently upgraded and improved and have an extended reach.

 

For example, WSMV in Nashville still touts that they are the only station with a live Doppler radar in middle Tennessee. While that may be true, the entire area is covered by at least 4 NWS radar sweeps, and the WSMV radar at their transmitter tower can only cover a small radius. In fact, half the time it would break down (because it was well past it’s prime) and would take months to fix and put back online.

 

In this day in age with stations grounding helicopters and eliminating positions just to cut costs and lower their bottom line, having your own Doppler radar is just completely unnecessary. Especially given the fact WSI and Baron have well integrated the NWS radars and from what I’m understanding for the WSMV situation, it takes a lot of work to just integrate your own radar into those systems and even then, it’s not the best because it’s almost like sticking a standard USB into a dongle that plugs into USB-C for lack of a better analogy. You’re basically converting old technology to work with new technology.

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One of the major issues with this market is that the NWS radars are quite far away, so low level features could be missed. For the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area, the closest NWS radars are the one in Ruskin (near Tampa) which is around 80 miles away, and Miami which is around 120 miles away. For this area, having those in-house radars are a huge benefit, especially for tornado warnings.

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4 hours ago, dialhoang said:

One of the major issues with this market is that the NWS radars are quite far away, so low level features could be missed. For the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area, the closest NWS radars are the one in Ruskin (near Tampa) which is around 80 miles away, and Miami which is around 120 miles away. For this area, having those in-house radars are a huge benefit, especially for tornado warnings.

This is the best-case scenario for having your own owned Doppler. Otherwise if you have it 20 miles away from the NWS site or the area is just beyond oversaturated (just on first thought, Buffalo and Rochester being supplemented by Toronto or the Bay Area/Inland Empire), it's pointless; like there are Doppler sites which have nature exaggerations, like the Sullivan, WI radar which has Horicon Marsh nearby, where a station one works better for the area. But those are becoming few and far between.

 

Though I do miss all the Doppler wars and things like "Doppler 2 Million"...that was a fun era in local news. 🤭

 

 

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On 6/20/2022 at 7:48 PM, brianpr3 said:

https://www.winknews.com/2022/06/20/wink-the-weather-authority-launches-swfls-most-advanced-doppler-radar/

When i moved to the market in 2003 they used to have an onsite Doppler radar wonder what happened that they had to use the nws radars for the last few years

I Wonder how the WINK doppler held up during Ian?  I know the wink studios were underwater.  As far as i know the WBBH (First Alert Power Doppler HD) / WZVN (Storm Warn7 Doppler) Doppler survived.

 

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15 hours ago, DENDude said:

I Wonder how the WINK doppler held up during Ian?  I know the wink studios were underwater.  As far as i know the WBBH (First Alert Power Doppler HD) / WZVN (Storm Warn7 Doppler) Doppler survived.

 

The radar is located at their transmitter site in Babcock Ranch, and considering that they are broadcasting from there for the time being, and from what I've seen are putting out a signal over the air, I'm cautiously optimistic about how the radar fared during the storm. 

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On 10/1/2022 at 12:20 AM, DENDude said:

I Wonder how the WINK doppler held up during Ian?  I know the wink studios were underwater.  As far as i know the WBBH (First Alert Power Doppler HD) / WZVN (Storm Warn7 Doppler) Doppler survived.

 

Wink doppler is in babcock ranch supposedly that's where they are broadcasting from transmitter? 🤔

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22 hours ago, brianpr3 said:

Wink doppler is in babcock ranch supposedly that's where they are broadcasting from transmitter? 🤔

Yes they are in a makeshift studio built in a tow behind trailer at babcock ranch from how they described it.   It looked cramped.

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