nickrj
Well-Known Member
As per the subject... ? I'm having a bit of trouble with it crashing for no good reason. Are there any other free or even low-cost alternatives?
Cheers, Nick
Cheers, Nick
Alternatives to Grib.US
- Thread starter nickrj
- Start date
Conachair
Guest
http://www.saildocs.com/ is good for gribs and looks like some free stuff here http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Grib-Notes but i haven´t tried it. Atlantic I ended up using here http://gribs.ocens.net for ftp download with satphone as was quicker than email log on\off. Have the sripts somewhere (from forgot his name of these parts), could email if you want.
Congrats on the road trip. Off soon?? Good luck, fair winds.
paddy
Congrats on the road trip. Off soon?? Good luck, fair winds.
paddy
nickrj
Well-Known Member
Thanks Paddy, appreciate it.
Would definitely like scripts if you could send them through... My name (nick) at my website domain (bigoceans).
Another question - How did you configure dialup networking with your phone? I have a USB to Serial converter, and my phone is there, however I'm not sure what usernames, numbers etc I'm supposed to be using? I don't have the Iridium Data CD.
Yes, might be departing next weekend if the weather is right. Hawaii first stop, then I don't know... West I guess.
Nick
Would definitely like scripts if you could send them through... My name (nick) at my website domain (bigoceans).
Another question - How did you configure dialup networking with your phone? I have a USB to Serial converter, and my phone is there, however I'm not sure what usernames, numbers etc I'm supposed to be using? I don't have the Iridium Data CD.
Yes, might be departing next weekend if the weather is right. Hawaii first stop, then I don't know... West I guess.
Nick
Conachair
Guest
You have mail. I hope. A handy iridium setup prog is available here http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Downloads.
I treated myself to a pcmcia serial port for the phone, haven´t tried it with usb\serial adaptors but read a few reports of problems. Dowloading direct from ocens worked for me across atlantic, grib areas are big but I found it was quicker than using the saildocs email grib service with thunderbird.
If I was on passage more I might sign up with saildocs so email would be much quicker but at the moment it´s just too many beer tokens to be justified.
How are you updating your website offshore? I used "ftp put" to upload xml file for pins in google maps and a plain htm file for text. Tried "ftp append" for text but it didn´t work very well, file was small anyway so was easier just to replace the whole thing.
Can you recieve txts OK? I had problems, a lot of the time txts wouldn´t come through, phone is a motorola 9500.
Good luck with the trip, may the winds be kind.
I treated myself to a pcmcia serial port for the phone, haven´t tried it with usb\serial adaptors but read a few reports of problems. Dowloading direct from ocens worked for me across atlantic, grib areas are big but I found it was quicker than using the saildocs email grib service with thunderbird.
If I was on passage more I might sign up with saildocs so email would be much quicker but at the moment it´s just too many beer tokens to be justified.
How are you updating your website offshore? I used "ftp put" to upload xml file for pins in google maps and a plain htm file for text. Tried "ftp append" for text but it didn´t work very well, file was small anyway so was easier just to replace the whole thing.
Can you recieve txts OK? I had problems, a lot of the time txts wouldn´t come through, phone is a motorola 9500.
Good luck with the trip, may the winds be kind.
graham42
Well-Known Member
zygrib is best free grib reader.
http://www.zygrib.org/index.php?page=abstract_en
scroll to bottom of file/windows version
select grib file area-hold left click and scan
hit "download grib" and select days forecast. once downloaded it asks to be saved then displays on grib map.
grib files work on maxsea 10.3 for weather routing[if you have]
each time you need an update re-read my discription.
http://www.zygrib.org/index.php?page=abstract_en
scroll to bottom of file/windows version
select grib file area-hold left click and scan
hit "download grib" and select days forecast. once downloaded it asks to be saved then displays on grib map.
grib files work on maxsea 10.3 for weather routing[if you have]
each time you need an update re-read my discription.
A
Anonymous
Guest
saildocs.com and look at Airmail3 (free) which is a very low overhead and high performance mail client. On your travels, consider hf/mf ssb radio. I'd guess you could get a good second hand deal.
MailASail
Well-Known Member
Hi, Ed Wildgoose from MailASail here
Just to add our free weather downloader to the list you have above:
http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Weather
It's free to use and it's a nice complement to the very good Saildocs pages - in fact we modelled the system after Saildocs and tried to add complementary weather (mostly graphical charts because saildocs goes mainly for text)
With regards to free noaa grib data, the main free providers are (disregarding the original source, ie NOAA):
- MailASail (NWW3 & GFS)
- Saildocs (NWW3 & GFS)
- GMN (NWW3 only)
- UGrib (GFS only)
The first three are email responders, ie you send a request and get a reply back by email. If your email system is fast then this is a very quick system, eg if you have an account on our MailASail server then you will have the response back in your inbox in less than 1 second
The later is a some custom protocol, but my experience is that it twiddles it's thumbs for quite a long time after you request a file, and typically you can waste 40-60 secs waiting for a response
Obviously we sat down and optimised our service to be as fast as possible and even on broadband you can usually push Send/Rcv twice in a row as fast as you can and already have the response downloading into your inbox
If you want dots on a map while cruising then please do also have a look at our blog/tracking product. You can send a very short email (or SMS) to the blog system and it appears instantly on your own blog page (including any pictures in the email, etc). Should be faster than FTPing things around and easy to setup a bunch of entries offline and push send later to send them in a batch
examples at:
http://blog.mailasail.com
Oh, thanks to Conachair for posting a link to us above, but note that it shouldn't have an extra dot on the end, correct URL should be:
http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Downloads
Finally, my experience is that the serial to usb adaptors are as robust (or more robust) than the PCMCIA adaptors. However, yes be sure that you still find problems with 10-20% of serial to usb adaptor and an Iridium phone, but on average they work well (buy from a supplier who can sell devices known to work ok if you are worried, or buy two different brands if you can't do that...)
Good luck
Ed W
Just to add our free weather downloader to the list you have above:
http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Weather
It's free to use and it's a nice complement to the very good Saildocs pages - in fact we modelled the system after Saildocs and tried to add complementary weather (mostly graphical charts because saildocs goes mainly for text)
With regards to free noaa grib data, the main free providers are (disregarding the original source, ie NOAA):
- MailASail (NWW3 & GFS)
- Saildocs (NWW3 & GFS)
- GMN (NWW3 only)
- UGrib (GFS only)
The first three are email responders, ie you send a request and get a reply back by email. If your email system is fast then this is a very quick system, eg if you have an account on our MailASail server then you will have the response back in your inbox in less than 1 second
The later is a some custom protocol, but my experience is that it twiddles it's thumbs for quite a long time after you request a file, and typically you can waste 40-60 secs waiting for a response
Obviously we sat down and optimised our service to be as fast as possible and even on broadband you can usually push Send/Rcv twice in a row as fast as you can and already have the response downloading into your inbox
If you want dots on a map while cruising then please do also have a look at our blog/tracking product. You can send a very short email (or SMS) to the blog system and it appears instantly on your own blog page (including any pictures in the email, etc). Should be faster than FTPing things around and easy to setup a bunch of entries offline and push send later to send them in a batch
examples at:
http://blog.mailasail.com
Oh, thanks to Conachair for posting a link to us above, but note that it shouldn't have an extra dot on the end, correct URL should be:
http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Downloads
Finally, my experience is that the serial to usb adaptors are as robust (or more robust) than the PCMCIA adaptors. However, yes be sure that you still find problems with 10-20% of serial to usb adaptor and an Iridium phone, but on average they work well (buy from a supplier who can sell devices known to work ok if you are worried, or buy two different brands if you can't do that...)
Good luck
Ed W
brak
N/A
Just in case you want to try something different, PolarView includes a fairly full featured GRIB viewer including wind/pressure/wave data. PolarView is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. The viewer is free.
Download it here: http://www.polarnavy.com/main/download
Hurry - the first 100 people to download the viewer will immediately find a lucky penny the next time they go out. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
Download it here: http://www.polarnavy.com/main/download
Hurry - the first 100 people to download the viewer will immediately find a lucky penny the next time they go out. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
tcm
...
passageweather.com gives free gribs, tho the areas are predetermined, you can't specify.
brak
N/A
PolarNavy now offers free downloads of GRIB data, both GFS and NWW3, extracted from the same trusted NOAA sources, of course.
Download current version of PolarView for either Windows or MacOS and use "Download" option in Grib Manager to obtain data.
Available at http://www.polarnavy.com/main/download
Download current version of PolarView for either Windows or MacOS and use "Download" option in Grib Manager to obtain data.
Available at http://www.polarnavy.com/main/download
elton
Well-Known Member
I use zyGrib too. I've never used any other Grib viewer so I can't say how it stacks up, but it's very good, and never crashes. The biggest advantage for me is that there's both a Windows version that I use on my Vista desktop machine and also Linux version I run on my eeePC on the boat.