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The present invention relates to a real time weather information interface
system. In particular, the invention provides a method and apparatus for
providing long distance real time public access to continuously available
and continuously updated detailed weather information from a plurality of
sources situated at remote locations throughout a wide geographic area.
One source of such detailed local weather information, for example, is the
National Weather Service (NWS), operated by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), United States Department of Commerce.
NWS operates approximately 380 weather observing stations which broadcast
local weather data collected at locations scattered throughout the United
States and its territories, known as NOAA Weather Radio. The present
invention, of course, may be employed with any other source or sources of
comparably detailed and continuously updated weather information such as
may be provided on a regional basis by other cooperating weather observing
and forecasting organizations.
NOAA Weather Radio currently broadcasts weather information from each of
its 380 stations via VHF radio broadcasts, on frequencies between 162.400
and 162.550 MHz. Typically, such radio transmissions consist of locally
generated recorded weather data segments which last between four and six
minutes and then "loop" to provide a continuous broadcast. The broadcasts
are continuously updated (that is, a new recorded segment is made) as new
weather observations are taken at the station. Such broadcasts differ from
those typically available, for example, from local telephone companies in
major cities, which are updated perhaps only daily and which normally
provide only superficial weather data, such as temperature readings
(recorded at airport weather stations, for example) humidity, barometric
pressure and an abbreviated weather forecast. Frequently, this information
is distilled from the far more detailed, continuously updated information
provided by NWS or by another weather service. A typical Coastal Station
NOAA Weather Radio broadcast, for example, includes a marine weather
synopsis which provides details of the sea-state, winds, visibility and
tidal information that is simply not available from any now existing
telephonic and/or human readable source on a nationwide system basis.
Additionally, NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts contain special segments of
interest to agricultural activities such as drying conditions and hours of
daylight available for work, and in special circumstances, the progress
and development of unusual weather phenomena such as hurricanes,
waterspouts, tornadoes and the like.
Such comprehensive weather information is extremely useful to those persons
whose activities, safety or enjoyment depend in some way on real time
comprehensive knowledge of local weather conditions. For example,
mariners--both commercial and operators of pleasure craft--have a
compelling need for reliable weather information in order to help plan for
their trips, and to make them safer and more enjoyable. Those with outdoor
professions, such as professional photographers, whose ability to attain
proper lighting and visibility conditions is essential to complete their
assignments, also depend heavily on accurate foreknowledge of local
weather conditions in remote locales. Similarly, vacation and business
travelers often have need of such information in order to plan their
schedules and itineraries prior to departure on trips to remote locales.
A problem encountered by those who seek the type of detailed local weather
information which is available from such local sources is that it is
normally only broadcast or distributed on a local basis. That is, despite
the obvious utility of such information to persons in remote locations, no
centralized audio voice system exists for making it available on a real
time basis to geographically remote users. The NWS, for example,
broadcasts its NOAA Weather Radio on local VHF radio, which is available
only within a radius of about 50 miles, the effective range of such
signals. Moreover, while such broadcasts are sometimes distributed as a
public service via other media by local providers, these services
typically serve about the same coverage areas as the VHF broadcast, so
they are of no value to a person needing such information at a remote
location.
While each local NWS station can be reached directly by telephone, in order
to take advantage of this accessibility, it is necessary for a prospective
user of such information to be aware of the location and telephone number
of the NWS weather station nearest his or her area of interest, which is
frequently unknown and difficult to obtain. A caller wishing to contact
the Nashville, Tenn. NWS facility, for example, would not be able to find
the telephone number from Nashville information listings, as the facility
is located in the small adjacent community of Mt. Julliet, Tenn., and is
thus not listed as a Nashville number. The same situation exists for other
NWS facilities. Moreover, even if the number is known, the NWS personnel
are not required to give out personalized briefings to the general public,
and sometimes will not if they are too busy to do so. Thus, due to the
lack of a centralized real time audio voice distribution system, it is
expensive, difficult or impossible to get completely detailed and timely
weather information on a distant location.
Existing systems do now provide nationwide access to some local weather
information via a centralized location by means of "boiler plate" format
recordings made at and distributed from a central location based on
severely edited information obtained from local weather stations at remote
locations usually via a non voice teletype service known as "Weather Wire"
provided by the NWS. Such systems, can now be accessed by commercial
telephone network. They do not, however, provide any mechanism for
connecting the caller directly to a local weather station at the remote
location and do not provide weather information from such stations on a
real time basis. Because the information is edited, abbreviated, recorded
and made available only from the centralized location, it is necessarily
delayed in the process and omits much of the current detailed weather
information which is available from the local weather stations because it
must be made to fit a standard "boiler plate" format. Moreover, because
the central recordings are updated only periodically and not continuously
(as is the real time local broadcast) the information may be stale by the
time it is received, particularly in fast changing conditions such as
frequently occur in storm systems, fronts, and the like.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and
apparatus for a single source of access on a "live" or real time basis to
weather information or data recorded and locally broadcast at
geographically remote weather stations.
It is a further object of the invention to make such real time weather
information available via a commercial telephone network.
These and other objects and advantages are achieved by the real time
weather information interface according to the invention, in which a
central switching and interface unit is accessed via public commercial
telephone network. A remote weather station is selected by the incoming
caller by means of a "decision tree" selection process using a touch tone
telephone, and the central switching and interface unit makes contact with
a local interface unit at the caller selected remote weather reporting
station. Weather information broadcast locally by the remote weather
reporting station is then provided to the incoming caller on a real time
basis via the local interface unit being connected to an outgoing
telephone line, then to the central switching unit and on to the caller.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will
become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention
when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 is a schematic depiction of the information interface system
according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is a system block diagram of a local interface unit according to the
invention; and
FIGS. 3A-3D illustrate the call progress at the central interface unit
according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown a plurality of sources of locally
distributed weather information 1, which may be, for example, local
weather stations operated by NWS and broadcasting local weather
information via VHF radio, or any other source of continuously updated
local weather data. These local weather information sources may be
distributed across a wide geographic area, but at sites at which
communications facilities are available. At the site of each of the
sources of locally distributed weather information, a local interface unit
2 is coupled to access the local weather information and to input it to a
plurality of media 3 for communicating it to a central interface unit 4.
In a preferred embodiment, the interface unit 2 includes an impedance
matching circuit referred to as a bridge tap 6 (FIG. 2), by which it is
coupled to a NOAA Weather Radio console, for example, a model B420 or B422
NWR audio console. A bridge tap suitable for this purpose is available,
for example, from Granite Telephone Co. of Manchester, N.H. In another
preferred embodiment, the interface unit 2 includes a dedicated VHF
weather radio receiver situated within the local transmitter service range
of a selected remote weather broadcasting facility. The communications
media 3 may be commercial telephone lines, including either dedicated open
long distance lines or timed access commercial telephone lines having an
unlisted telephone number, or may be any other medium of long distance
communications such as radio transmitters, or satellite communication
links.
Each of the communications lines 3 is coupled, either continuously (as in
the case of a dedicated open long distance telephone line) or on an as
needed basis (as in the case of timed access long distance telephone
lines) to a central interface unit 4. Where timed access long distance
telephone lines are used, local interface unit 2 also includes a
conventional commercial telephone answering unit, such as is available
from Granite Telephone Co. Where dedicated long distance lines are used,
they are coupled directly to the bridge tap or VHF receiver of local
interface unit 2.
FIG. 2 is a system block diagram of a preferred embodiment for the local
interface unit 2, in which the local interface unit 2 couples audio
signals from the NOAA Weather Radio onto the tip/ring conductors of a
telephone line, such as communication lines 3 (FIG. 1). In FIG. 2, section
8 couples the local interface unit 2 with the locally distributed weather
information source such as the NOAA Weather Radio broadcast via audio
input section 18 and audio output section 20. A system control 10, for
example, a conventional and appropriately programmed microprocessor,
controls the operation of the local interface unit 2. The system control
10 includes a configuration memory 11 and program memory 13. The
configuration memory 11 can be, for example, non-volatile memory space
which holds data that describes the configuration features of the local
interface unit 2. Such features are, for example, access and maintenance
passwords, gain settings, various timeout function settings, etc. The
program memory 13 can be, for example, a reprogrammable memory for storing
the operating instructions for the microprocessor 10. The program memory
13 must be of sufficient size to store all defined functions for the local
interface unit 2, for example, 8000 bytes.
The system control 10 couples with a tone generator circuit 24, an
automatic gain control circuit (AGC) 12, a telephone interface circuit 14,
a line current sense circuit 16 and a dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF)
decoder circuit 22, for controlling the functionality of these circuits
within the local interface unit 2. The audio input from the NOAA Weather
Radio broadcast is provided to the automatic gain control circuit 12. The
automatic gain control circuit 12 monitors the audio signal strength
delivered to the local interface unit 2 and maintains it at a maximum
acceptable level as defined by telephone industry regulations. From the
automatic gain control circuit 12, the audio input is coupled with a
telephone interface circuit 14. The telephone interface circuit 14 can be,
for example, a standard auto-answer, dial up telephone link meeting FCC
regulations as stated in Part 68. The telephone interface circuit 14 will
implement isolation and input protection in order to protect the local
interface unit 2.
The telephone interface circuit 14 provides a tip/ring output of the
weather broadcast to a line current sense circuit 16. The line current
sense circuit 16 senses the line current when the local interface unit 2
has gone off-hook thus indicating an active telephone circuit or
connection. The tip/ring conductors from the telephone interface circuit
14 are indicated at 26 and are thus coupled to the central interface unit
4 (FIG. 1 ). As noted above, the tip/ting conductors 26 can form the
communication lines 3 shown in FIG. 1.
A DTMF decoder 22 is provided for receiving and decoding DTMF signals
received via the telephone interface circuit 14. The outputs from the DTMF
decoder 22 are provided to the system control 10 for properly controlling
the local interface unit 2.
The tone generator circuit 24 generates tones, for example, a 400 Hz sign
wave signal tone having an accuracy tolerance of .+-.5 Hz and an output
level setting of 0 dbm maximum. The sign wave signal is provided to the
automatic gain control circuit 12 for output onto the communication lines
3. The tone generator circuit 24 is controlled via signals received from
the system control 10.
In a preferred embodiment, the audio input section 18 is a bridging audio
interface for inputting NOAA Weather Radio audio output into the local
interface unit 2. The audio interface circuit 18 can, for example, have an
input impedance of greater than 10,000 ohms at frequencies between 100 and
4,000 Hz. Also provided is an audio output circuit 20 which outputs from
the local interface unit 2 to the audio from the audio input circuit 18.
For example, the audio output circuit 20 can provide sufficient gain to
cancel any interfering losses. The audio output circuit should, for
example, be able to drive a 600 ohm load to a minimum of 0 dbm.
The local interface unit 2 shown in FIG. 2 functions in the following
sequence. The local interface unit 2 monitors the communication line 3,
i.e., the tip/ring pair 26, for a ringing signal and answers the telephone
call when the ringing signal is received. After answering the call, the
local interface unit 2 transmits a connect tone provide by the tone
generator circuit 24 to the calling party. Next, the local interface unit
2 receives and validates a DTMF coded password received over the
communication line 3. Once validated, for example, by transmitting a valid
password received tone, the local interface unit 2 connects the calling
party with the audio from the NOAA Weather Radio console, i.e., the local
data source 1 in FIG. 1. Further, the local interface unit 2 monitors the
communication line to determine if the call is terminated. If so, the
local interface unit acts accordingly to terminate the call.
In a preferred mode of operation, the local interface unit 2 functions to
take itself off-hook after receiving two ringing signals on the tip/ring
conductors 26, i.e. the communication line 3 of FIG. 1. After going
off-hook, the local interface unit 2 pauses for a second and then
transmits a precision dial tone to the calling party. The precision dial
tone provides several signals to the calling party. First, it is an
indication for the calling party to begin sending DTMF passwords.
Secondly, it provides an indication to the calling party that the expected
audio program source is available. Other functions may also be implemented
such as indicating that it is receiving new password digits; indicating
that it received a valid password; and indicating that it received an
incorrect new password sequence.
After the local interface unit 2 answers the incoming call and starts the
precision dial tone transmission, the local interface unit 2 waits a
predetermined time, for example, three seconds, to receive an access
password. If the local interface unit fails to receive the access password
within the prescribed time, it immediately goes on-hook and begins to
again monitor the communication line for another ringing signal. However,
once the local interface unit begins receiving DTMF signals from the
calling party, it discontinues generating the precision dial tone.
In a preferred embodiment, the access password can be DTMF coded and
transmitted. The password may contain, for example, seven characters or
digits in which the first character of the password is always the "*"
digit followed by numerical digits, i.e., 0-9. Each DTMF digit in the
password should, for example, be active for a minimum time period with a
further minimum time period between digits.
As noted above, once the access password has been validated by the local
interface unit 2, the local interface unit 2 connects the audio signal
from the NOAA Weather Radio broadcast to the telephone circuit for
transmission to the calling party. While in this configuration, the local
interface unit both monitors the telephone circuit line current via the
line current sense circuit 16 for a drop-out which indicates termination
of the call and it monitors the audio from the NOAA Weather Radio
broadcast interface for a minimum signal level.
If the local interface unit detects, for example, a line current drop-out,
i.e., no current on the line, for more than 180 msec, the local interface
unit 2 terminates the call and again goes on-hook. Similarly, if the local
interface unit 2 receives a call termination signal, i.e., a DTMF digit
"A" signal followed immediately by a DTMF digit "B" signal from the
calling party, the local interface unit will reply with a dial tone for
one second indicating reception of the call termination signal and then
goes on-hook.
Along with the function of coupling the weather radio broadcast to the
telephone circuit, the local interface units also is provided with a
maintenance access function. The maintenance access function allows the
local interface unit 2 to be checked for function performance and/or
reconfiguration via the telephone interface circuit 14. To gain access to
the maintenance functions after calling the local interface unit 2, a
maintenance access password must be received.
Once the local interface unit 2 validates a received maintenance access
password, the local interface unit 2 can receive and execute single digit
DTMF commands from the telephone interface circuit 14 for performing a
number of maintenance functions, for example, audio monitoring, password
change, call termination, set timeout time, set password level, etc.
Referring back to FIG. 1, the central interface unit, in turn can be
accessed from a plurality of access points 5, for example, by commercial
long distance telephone. For this purpose, the central interface unit is
assigned a telephone number which may be a 1-800 or a 1-900 number.
Alternatively, and within the scope of the invention, the central
interface unit may also be accessed by any other medium in a known manner,
as for example, by radio or satellite link. Central interface unit 4, may
be, for example, an interactive telephone switching unit which is capable
of answering an incoming telephone call and connecting it to a selected
remote weather data source, such as a NOAA Weather Radio console, in
response to a series of codes entered by a caller by, for example, pushing
buttons on a touch tone telephone unit. In those instances in which the
incoming caller selects a remote data source served by a dedicated open
long distance telephone line, the incoming call is simply connected to the
open line. To access those locations served by timed access commercial
telephone service, central interface unit 4 also has a high speed dialer
which is activated to access the selected location in response to entry of
the corresponding code.
Central interface unit 4 may be a known commercially available telephone
answering and switching device. Such units can be DOS based
microcomputers, for example, a 486 Texas Microsystems unit configured to
perform telecommunications using existing Dialogic Corp. and Dianatel,
Inc. components. Similarly, local interface units 2 may be commercial
telephone answering devices available from Granite Telephone Co. of
Manchester, N.H., Data Signal, Inc. of Albany, Ga., and others, which have
the capability to answer incoming calls and, in response to a numerical
tone code sequence, connect the incoming caller to the outgoing weather
radio audio program material.
In operation of the weather information interface apparatus according to
the invention, a caller accesses the central interface unit 4, for
example, by dialing a 1-800 or 1-900 long distance telephone number, and
the central interface unit answers the call and transmits a recorded
message which instructs the caller to enter the three digit telephone area
code for the location desired; for example "615" for Tennessee, "212" for
New York City, etc. The caller then hears a listing of weather stations
available in that state or area code, with a number (usually one digit)
for each. Upon pressing the number corresponding to the desired location,
the caller is then connected directly to the on-going local weather
information broadcast from the weather station at the selected location,
on a real time basis. That is, the caller receives the information
directly and immediately as it is locally broadcast by the remote
facility. Ordinarily, such information would be in the form of spoken
words which are heard directly by the caller, but could be in other, for
example, machine readable form such as a digital code which would then be
converted to human audio format by the central interface unit 4. If a
caller uses the service repeatedly for the same station, he can skip the
"decision tree" process and immediately enter the code to get the selected
broadcast, thus saving time and money.
The operation of the central interface unit 2 for connecting the caller
with the ongoing local weather information broadcast can, in a preferred
embodiment, be carried out via the communication line 3 which couples with
the local interface unit 2 as described in FIG. 2.
In practice, available NOAA Weather Radio broadcasts "loop" every four to
six minutes, and the caller can decide when he has heard the portion
pertinent to his special need or interest and then simply disconnect. In a
preferred embodiment, central interface unit 4 includes an automatic
disconnect after a maximum of 1.5 "loops" or approximately 12 minutes
total connection time, to prevent, for example, a small child dialing the
number and just listening continuously. This procedure would also
guarantee more equal access to the finite number of incoming telephone
access circuits the system is using at any point in time. After a user of
the system became familiar with it, he could reduce his "per briefing"
time charges by immediately entering the correct touch-tone sequence upon
his call being connected so that he could bypass the system's information
system that will be necessary to assist first time or occasional users
through the "decision tree" process.
When a caller accesses a station which is served by a single long distance
telephone circuit connecting it to interface unit 4, two situations could
occur: (1) the station is already on-line servicing a previous request, so
the new request is simply connected to the already open line. The central
interface unit 4 will not disconnect (hang up) if it is in process with
one or more incoming calls for that station, but will disconnect when no
callers need that station. (2) When a caller accesses this station, and
the line is not in use at that moment, the central interface unit 4 simply
speed dials the unlisted local telephone number to reconnect it via
interface unit 2.
To prevent accidental or unauthorized access to the unlisted number
telephone line connected to interface unit 2 by anything other than
central interface unit 4 (for example telemarketing callers or computers)
in a preferred embodiment of the invention, local interface unit 2
requires the entry of a multiple digit secret numerical code, which is
speed dialed by the central interface unit 4 following the telephone
number in response to receiving a 400 Hz precision tone transmitted by the
local interface unit 2, in order to complete the connection when interface
unit 2 answers an incoming call. If such a code is not received within
three seconds after the incoming call is answered with the precision tone,
local interface unit 2 simply hangs up and breaks the connection with the
attempted incoming call. Thus, the local interface unit is accessible only
via the central interface unit 4. A local interface unit suitable for this
purpose is available from Granite Telephone Co. of Manchester, N.H. and
Data Signal, Inc. of Albany, Ga. Alternatively, the local interface unit
described with respect to FIG. 2 provides a most preferred embodiment for
carrying out this purpose.
Whenever two or more callers access the same local interface unit 2
simultaneously, central interface unit 4 prevents the respective incoming
callers from communicating with each other, or "conferencing", while
simultaneously enabling them to "listen only" to the shared NOAA Weather
Radio program material incoming on a single line. Apparatus for this
purpose is known, and is available, for example, from Dialogic, Corp. and
others.
FIGS. 3a-d illustrate the call progress through the central interface unit
4 in a preferred embodiment. As discussed above, the central interface
unit 4 couples with the remote access units 5 via, for example, a standard
commercial long distance telephone T1 circuit interface. The use of a T1
interface provides voice to and from the central interface unit 4 in a
digital format. The voice coming to the central interface unit is received
on one data stream RX and the voice leaving the central interface unit is
transmitted on another dam stream TX. There are a total of 24 separate
inbound and outbound voice paths on a T1 interface. With respect to FIGS.
3a-d, the operation of the central interface unit 4 for a typical call is
illustrated. In FIG. 3a, an inbound call, for example, from a caller at a
remote access unit 5 (FIG. 1), is received by a T1 circuit card 30 of the
central interface unit 4 on the inbound T1 line RX. The inbound call is
then cross-connected to a voice circuit board 32 via a digital switch
matrix 34 in the central interface unit 4 as shown in FIG. 3b. The voice
circuit board 32 processes the call by providing voice outputs back to the
caller on the outbound TX line. Further, the voice circuit board 32
accepts DTMF signal commands provided by the calling party.
As shown in FIG. 3c, when the calling party requests a particularly NOAA
Weather Radio broadcast, another voice circuit board 36 attaches the
outbound T1 line from the central interface unit 4 and dials the desired
local interface unit 2 to access the requested NOAA Weather Radio station
over the long distance network. Again, the switch 34 operates to
cross-connect the voice circuit board 36 with the T1 circuit card 38 for
placing the outbound call.
With respect to FIG. 3d, once the proper handshaking protocol is completed
between the voice circuit board 36 and the local interface unit 2, the
inbound data stream RX from the outbound call is rerouted as indicated on
line 40 through digital switch matrix 34 to go out on the output data
stream TX of the inbound call. Thus, the caller from the remote access
unit 5 is then coupled to receive the weather broadcast from the NOAA
weather broadcast station.
In this configuration, the inbound T1 voice circuit board 32 is still
allowed to receive commands from the caller. However, the caller can only
hear the RX data from the outbound T1 circuit card 38. Further, the RX
data from the outbound T1 circuit card 38 is transmitted both to the TX of
the inbound call and the RX of the outbound voice circuit board 36. By
doing this, the outbound voice circuit board 36 can listen for an on-hook
or hang up condition to perform a proper call tear-down.
It is an advantage of the present invention that the use of T1 data
streams, which are simply data bits, allows the data streams to be copied
to as many places as they are needed in any given time. Even though a data
stream can be transmitted to many places at once, a particular data stream
can receive from only a single place at one time. In order to receive from
more than a single place, digital signal processing hardware is necessary
to perform a summation of two or more data streams.
If another caller desires access to the same NOAA Weather Radio station,
then when the call is received by a T1 circuit card of the central
interface unit 2, the inbound portion of that call proceeds exactly as the
first call as noted with respect to FIGS. 3a-d. The central interface unit
4 recognizes that the same NOAA Weather Radio station has been requested
through commands to the voice circuit board and also recognizes that an
outbound call has already been established with that particular NOAA
Weather Radio station. Therefore, the central interface unit 2 simply
couples another copy of the outbound RX dam from the NOAA Weather Radio
station to the new caller. In this manner, interaction between the RX and
TX data streams of the two inbound calls is prevented.
The processing of the inbound calls, as illustrated for example in FIGS.
3a-d, is performed under the control of the system software in the central
interface unit 4. The central interface unit functions can be carried out
via, for example, a microcomputer or microprocessor, that is programmed
accordingly. A preferred embodiment of the program code for executing the
central interface unit functions is provided in Appendix A.
Although the invention has been described and illustrated in detail, it is
to be clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and
example, and is not to be taken by way of limitation. The spirit and scope
of the present invention are to be limited only by the terms of the
appended claims.
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