New BEEB forecast format - petiton

Thistle

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Welcome to the forum and congratulations - you just beat me to putting up this link. Discussion on the forums on the BBC site indictes that 300+ signatures will force a reply from the BBC and the government (though I'm not holding my breath for anything earthshattering from either of them.)

Does anyone know how to find out how many signatures there are on one of these petitions?
 

Evadne

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I have to say that I agree with your analysis of the national forecast, but that I find the local forecast (BBC south) much as it was. You get an animation with isobars, tide times, sea state and a summary of Beaufort wind strengths over the sea for several days ahead. The weird rainfall animation would probably be useful if it were repeated or run more slowly, as with all the animations, and the wind direction grid is a bit of a waste of time without amplitudes but I will wait and see how it gets tweaked over the coming weeks.
 

Robin

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Dave

I agree that BBC South is much better than the National one but not all of us are lucky enough to live here, think about the Birminham Navy. Even then Essex girl is still doing flypast zooms and pans and the shoals of frantic fish that are supposed to show wind direction strength and I guess temperature (??? fish change colour??) leave me scratching my head totally! Putting a separate, thankfully stationary) panel of 'Poole F4', etc is no more than they used to do before, didn't need a £1million change for that.

Robin
 

starboard

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[ QUOTE ]
Dave

but not all of us are lucky enough to live here,

Robin

[/ QUOTE ]

I must remember that next week whilst sailing around my home waters of the Firth of Clyde, spectacular scenery and maybe not another yacht seen all afternoon!!

Yes for once I am lucky not to be lucky.

Paul.
 

Robin

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[ QUOTE ]
I must remember that next week whilst sailing around my home waters of the Firth of Clyde, spectacular scenery and maybe not another yacht seen all afternoon!!

Yes for once I am lucky not to be lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]

I meant lucky enough to live at the coast rather than at any particular place, thinking more of the inland livers not able to see the 'local' forecast where their boat is.

However, since you mention it, Poole is a wonderful place. It even says so on local bumper stickers AND on my huge defaced St Georges flag! So there /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Robin
 

mirabriani

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Look mate

If you had been with us on passage from St Maarten to Bermuda last week, you would not have written (or even thought that)

My whole world was a six mile diameter disc of water which varied between rough and very rough with barely anything else to see for six days and seven nights.

Bermuda is nice though, I'll have to post the pic of me kissing the ground.

Regards Briani
 

Cantata

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You're definitely well off at BBC South. The girlies in Tunbridge Wells for BBC SE have followed the national lead and done away will all the useful stuff.
 

Evadne

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I am well aware that living in the same BBC area that I sail in is a distinct advantage. Some years ago the local forecaster was called Helen .... I forget her surname, sadly, but you don't see her around anymore. Not Helen Willets. Anyway, she was a paid-up yottie and the forecasts had a definite Solent-sailing type bias. Perfectly suited to the clientele. You always go the wind in Beaufort numbers, the sea state etc. etc. After a bit of a hiatus the current incumbent also seems to give some saily biased weather info., so all is well again.

What I will say is that exactly the same graphics are available on the BBC weather website but, because you can repeat view them or freeze them and stare at them they are far, far better. I would postulate that the new graphics have ben designed for and trialled over the same medium which is why they don't work as well on the "real" TV.

What I REALLY want is a good radio based forecast at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. (and hourly for 24 hours in a perfect world), seven days a week. It only needs to be thew inshore forecast, with a synopsis really. This is because I can get any forecast I want while ashore but when on a prolonged sailing trip you have the vagaries of local radio, the reliable but succinct R4 shipping forecast and the infinitely variable "Harbourmaster's Front Door" forecasts to go on. I refuse to take a computer on holiday: computers = work, and that is what I go sailing to get a way from. One day I'll get around to buiying a Navtex but that's nearly as bad aas having as computer on board.

Things have come a long way since I started sailing, which seems like only yesterday but back then, the best forecast was broadcast at midnight, immediately preceded by "sailing bye", still the best lullaby ever invented. Hands up who else has woken up with a start to the words "...and finally South East Iceland..."?? By comparison, complaining about the quality of the graphics on the telly seems a bit churlish.
 

Twister_Ken

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Yeah, whatever, but surely by now you realise that the only forecasts worth the bread they're buttered on come from the French side of the water.

Unreliable information is still unreliable, whatever size and colour the icons come in. Handzup all those who heard the CG snigger when they read out the met office forecast

Vivre <a href="http://www.meteo.fr." target="_blank">[url]www.meteo.fr.[/url]</a>
 

cliff

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[ QUOTE ]
I must remember that next week whilst sailing around my home waters of the Firth of Clyde, spectacular scenery and maybe not another yacht seen all afternoon!!

Yes for once I am lucky not to be lucky.

Paul.

[/ QUOTE ]And you have the benefit of the Scottish Forecast sponsored by Flybe. I particularly like the fly through bit - so easy to see what is happening.
----------
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“Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity”
Skype id:cliffillupo
 

peterb

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[ QUOTE ]
Handzup all those who heard the CG snigger when they read out the met office forecast

[/ QUOTE ]

Or, as Thames CG once said (after a forecast that totally disagreed with current weather); "We only read 'em; we don't write 'em!"
 

Sgeir

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Err.... Just a minute. Is this a genuine petition?

Welcome to the forum Supra30. No offence intended, but although I have made known my concerns about the new forecast, I will not be signing the petition - unless I know more about it.

I have read the privacy statement: "The information you provide when you sign a petition is stored on our servers but is the exclusive property of the petition host, who is a member of iPetitions and who has agreed to the terms of this privacy policy. As with the information you supply iPetitions, hosts will be asked not to sell, share, or rent this information with any other company or individual except in an aggregated form. There is one exception to this rule, however, and that is when the petition is presented to its designated recipient. At such time, the recipient will receive a disaggregated list of names with some or all of the information they provided when they signed the petition."

Personal details - home address and e-mail address - as it would then become the "the exclusive property of the petition host", a Mr Chris Jones. He will be "asked" not to pass on that info. I'd rather not, thank you, unless I have a little bit more info about the host.

And that's quite apart from passing on personal info to hundreds of MPs and their young suited gophers.
 

Evadne

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Further info.

I emailed our local BBC forecaster on Friday after contributing to this thread and got a very supportive reply over the weekend. The gist of it is that she's put in wind and tide information for us as a local extra, would welcome any constructive comments and is collecting them and forwarding them on to London. SO if you want the BBC weather bosses to hear what you're saying, write to them, or your local BBC station.
 
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