Date:       9/20/02 10:07 PM
To:         Bulletins
From:       Luis Soltero
Copy:       
Blind Copy: 
Subject:    Weather Part II


Hello All,

This is part 2 of a multi part series on downloadig weather
via MarineNet.

In the first installment we discussed getting weather from
nws via ftpmail.  In this bulletin we describe procedures for
viewing the data received via ftpmail and automating the
download process with calypso.

Weather products delivered to you via e-mail from ftpmail
arrive as attachments.  Textual products can be read and
printed directly from calypso.  Simply open the mail and
read the weather.

Wefax products arrive as attachments in TIF format.
To view these you must have a tif viewer installed on your
system.  To view the image double click on the mail
containing the product and then double click on the attachment.
If you have a tif viewer installed on the system, the viewer will
open up and the weather fax will be displayed.  If you do
not have a tif viewer then the windows query application 
dialog will pop up requesting an application to use to view
the image (hit cancel if this happens).  
Note that a web browser will no display TIF images
unless a special plug in has been installed...

So... if you double click the image and it doesn't pop up on the
screen, you will need to install a tif viewer. Fortunately windows
comes with a tif viewer called "Kodak imaging".  This viewer
usually gets installed by default.  If it's not installed on your system
then go to the control panel and double click Add/Remove programs.
Now click on the "Windows Setup" tab, then double click accessories
and select imaging.  The system may request your windows CD
if your machine did not come pre-installed with windows.

Now you should be able to view your wefaxes...

If you prefer you can save the wefax attachments to a folder by
right mouse clicking on the attachment inside calypso and 
then selecting "Save As..."

Onward...

Typing in the ftpmail commands each time you want to request 
weather is a pain...  Especially since the names of some
of these products are so cryptic and impossible to remember.

Say, for example, that you would like to download the following
4 products on a daily basis

	Northwest Caribbean of 15N and West of 75W (AMZ082) 
	Southwest Caribbean of 15N and West of 75W (AMZ084) 
	East Caribbean eastof 75W (AMZ086)
	Tropical North Atlantic 07-22º N, 55-65º W (AMZ087) 


the ftpmail command would be

open
cd /data/forecasts/marine/offshore/am
get amz082.txt
get amz084.txt
get amz086.txt
get amz087.txt
quit

Instead of typing this in every day... you can use a calypso
e-mail feature called "mail templates" to create a template
with a unique name that has these commands permanently
recorded in it.

To create a template in calypso select the following menu
item

Messages->Compose->Template...

A new window will pop up on the screen.  Now enter a unique name
for the template such as "Daily text weather".  In the To: field
enter ftpmail@weather.noaa.gov
leave the subject blank
enter the above commands into the body.
disable the signature by clicking on the 
"Signature" pull down list and selecting "none"

Save the template by using the "floppy" icon
or File->save and then close the window.

Your template is now ready.  Whenever you want
weather now simply click on the "Template" icon 
on the tool bar next to "Compose" and then
hit "send" that is it... The mail mesg is preformatted
for you by the template.  Alternately, you can right
mouse click on the template click compose. The
template is under "Address Book"->"Mail Templates" in
the explorer window (top left).

In calypso you can have any number of templates.  You
might want to use this feature to automate some 
of your other e-mail tasks..


There is a way to configure the mail robots to send you
e-mail weather on a schedule.  We discourage you from
doing this... Actually let me be a bit stronger here
*** DON'T DO THIS***
One week off your boat and your mailbox
will be swamped.  It's best to request the weather when
it's needed.  

I have had to remove as many as 1500 mail mesgs from user
accounts because they forgot to "turn" off their weather mail
before they laid up their boat.

That's it for now... 

--luis