How long have these broadcasts been on the internet?..In 1997, we were broadcasting audio only covering Hurricanes with the "Weather Information Network".At the beginning of hurricane season 1998, Hurricanecity & WIN covered hurricane George's hitting Puerto Rico,shortly thereafter weatheraudio.net was formed WABN in Pompano Bch, Florida in conjunction with Hurricanecity.com. In 2004 the setup was moved to Delray Beach,Fla and the process began for producing live video which would eventually become hurricane TV.
What is hurricane TV & what is its purpose ?.. We felt continuous coverage of hurricanes making landfall would inform and entertain listeners as well as allow visitors to interact with the broadcast by calling our observers & taking calls during hurricane warnings and other major weather events.Click here to see video of our broadcast setup | studio shot | colo facility picture
Who operates hurricaneTV (who is involved) ?..Jim Williams, the host of the broadcast handles most of the technical detail & broadcasting. Barbara Williams (wife) also helps on audio with commercials and updates. Bill Phillips in Virginia Beach handles quite a bit of the severe weather coverage by streaming media from any affected areas. On occasion Mark Davis in Batavia ,Illinois streams major weather events which we simulcast on hurricane TV. The network also has approx 150 observers nationwide & in the Caribbean that provide us information on severe weather via telephone (provided comunications are still up). If you would like to be an observer, please EMAIL WABN with your name, telephone number & city or simply email video or pictures you took during the storm & send it. You do not need to be experienced in the weather field or standing in it for that matter.
What do you broadcast ?.. Major weather events such as hurricanes making landfall, tornadoes that hit major metro areas with many fatalities, and crippling snow storms in major metropolitan areas usually over 12" accumulation in less than 24 hrs. Major weather situations like the superstorm of 1993 which affected whole states. Broadcasts will also take place for a major earthquake or other natural disasters which could affect hundreds of thousands of people. Otherwise you will see our looping 24 hr a day documentaries,storm chaser videos and hurricane preparation guides.
When can we hear you ?..Well, usually if a major weather story breaks "suddenly" we will be live usually that same night or the entire next day depending on severity & news resources. Bill Phillips is always ready to pull the trigger on a broadcast if a tornado touches down in a metro area. If you have not already done so,please sign up to the mailing list by putting your email address in the box. By signing up, you will get notified if we are going live. Hurricane coverage usually begins when warnings are issued for a particular area. Coverage usually ends 24 hrs after initial disaster occurs unless news is plentiful, then we will stay on longer sometimes for days.Example (2005 Hurricane Wilma Jim Williams had technical issues due to storm damage & Bill Phillips took over. Jim was able to give live updates via cell phone & Bill took calls and emails from observers.)(Another example during Hurricane Michelle in Nov 2001 we allowed listeners to hear the hurricane watch net ham radio reports for 3 days in a row 24-7 as well as the Bahamas radio network.)
What can I expect to hear ?..We only cover major weather stories, meaning "when live" you will see local TV coverage,radio, webcams,radars & damage reports as they come in. On April 28th 2002 an F-5 Tornado touched down in Maryland,during the touchdown WABN (audio only at the time) was live with radio coverage from local radio stations as well as our own radar summary
Do you have a studio, where does this originate ?.. Well we tried to make this as much like a pro studio here in Delray Bch, Florida, the same location as Hurricanecity.com. The content originates from our office with 4 computers on a network. We also have weather equipment for monitoring such as Dish, DTV & internet streams. We also have weather software that gives us the latest updated advisories as they happen. We also monitor short wave frequencies & local scanner frequencies during local disasters. The stream is fed from our network to our server location at 1vault. During our live broadcast in 1999 "Hurricane Floyd", the broadcast had ham radio from the Bahamas Radio Network & listeners had a chance to hear what was happening in the Bahamas. We also stream live streaming cams wherever they are available from affected areas as there are many security cams most people dont know about that we access during hurricanes.During Hurricane Katrina in 2005 we were able to stream two live video cams from downtown New Orleans during & after Katrina.So basically during live broadcasts, the chairs with wheels are rolling back & forth constantly checking for new info and showing you what is happening from the affected areas..
What equipment do you use to broadcast ?..We have 4 Dell workstations on a network. The studio has aspi multiple battery backup backup & generator to keep broadcast alive "if we get hit". What we do is broadcast from our network at our location to our dedicated server on a high speed backbone. Windows media services streamer is on a dell poweredge rack mount server (colo) with 4gb memory located at 1 vault networks in Ft Lauderdale,Florida.NOTE: this does not guarantee our broadcasts never have problems as many things are beyond our control such as local broadband availability at our end. This facility has 8" poured concrete walls with no windows with multiple redundancy of power & communications,so we expect the server to stay up in a worst case scenario. As far as producion ,We mix all sound effects ,Telephone calls & all other audio/video through a Mackie mixing board with a Telos digital phone coupler & feed it through on the window media encoder to the server. Take a Look.
Can we hear you with any plug-in ?.. As of 3/25/07 we are broadcasting live video 24/7 that can be watched with either windows media player or real audio player. The older archives can be watched with real audio player to subscribers but the newest recorded shows starting in March 2007 will all be available to subscribers in flash player,accessible with the name & email address they signed up with. Dial up users can watch the live video in a smaller size screen , here, but the more bandwidth you have the better the picture will be.
How many people can hear this broadcast ?..As of 2005,we could only serve several hundred live streams at one time due to bandwidth constraints. The Helix Server allows Thousands of listerners but we capped it at several hundred due to bandwidth limitations at that time. The reason we did that is because at the hurricaneTV different co location during Katrina our bandwidth usage was through the roof. Here is a letter we recieved from the network regarding our overages. We ended up working out a bartering arrangement but needless to say something had to change. This prompted the move to 1vault networks where we have the bandwidth we need at our disposal with no additional cost's. In 2008 during Hurricane Ike hitting Texas we had over 1,000 or more steady viewers throuhout the day using windows media services.
Can my company sponsor the broadcast's ?.. YES!, sponsorship is needed to help us absorb the cost of broadcasting. Your company will recieve both banner & audio advertising More here. During hurricane coverage your advertisements will be heard by thousands of listeners per day,as Hurricanecity draws tens of thousands of interested visitors and listeners per day. If you would like your live video presenation see during the videocast's,please contact us for more info.
I know I can listen and watch, but can I participate ?.. We encourage people to call us from the affected areas, but if you have important information unknown to us to be passed on to our listeners, please call our phone number when it is mentioned and posted. You can also email us at hurricane TV with pictures & videos from your cell phone.
I missed a broadcast can I still hear it ?.. Most live shows are recorded and require a username & password to access the recorded clips. You can sign up from this page. You can also find all old clips at weatheraudio.net .
What about hurricane TV's future, what are your plans ?.. Please visit this page for our next show. Outside of that,we are conducting 24 hr a day broadcasting,meaning, at any time you will see looping video sometimes with jim williams live or recorded shows or interviews. Documentaries will be streamed 24/7 on DVD etc; with the streaming live towercam on the live feed if local conditions warrant. When a major weather story is breaking ,one of our three studio broadcasters will usually be streaming something about the situation.You may hear Mark announcing new advisories issued for Kalamazoo Michigan or Bill breaking in with a tsunami warning for Maui, Hawaii. During the 2004 hurricane season the live videocasting was a success with live video,radar & web page captures,streaming TV and radio. Some have asked how do you get away with streaming a TV station? dont they get mad? Actually we have had several TV stations contact us to tell us they are streaming live content and to please re-stream it. Sometimes we may stream the weather channel because it is passing along life saving information. The major networks we tap for minutes at a time when the situation is critical to get out the word. In a nut shell, we hope to have the most entertaining weather broadcast on the internet without focusing on just one source. The future looks bright with two goals in mind. First with more and more cell phones producing better video & snap shots we fully expect this media to be passed along to us by observers so you can see what they are seeing.Second with broadband opening up to more subscribers & bit rates increasing we not only hope to be able to host more streams but actually stream at a higher bit rate for clearer video.Finally more & more streaming webcams are online in affected areas & we find them & show them to you as it is all going down.
Can you give our radio & Television station live information? Jim has been heard on several stations in the Atlantic basin,from N.Y to South Florida. If you would like to have Jim on your radio show when a Hurricane is coming, either call into his show or send him an email,he will be glad to accomodate you. He has tons of statistics for each area of the Atlantic basin.
Tell us about the Hurricanecity/WABN listener base From 1999 until 2003 we kept track of listeners by people who fill out the form before listening. We got rid of this feature so people can watch right away without filling out a form. The following cities & Islands had so many listeners,we stopped counting them (in alphabetical order)...Atlanta, Austin,Bahamas as a whole, Baltimore, Barbados, Baton Rouge, Beaumont texas, Bermuda, Boston, Bradenton,fl,Cuba, Cancun, Cape coral,Fla, Cape Hatteras, Cayman islands, Charleston,Charlotte nc,Clearwater,Fl, Corpus Christi, Dallas,Daytona,Deltona,fl,Detroit, England, Fort Lauderdale, Ft Myers fl,Galveston, Grand Cayman, Grand Rapids,mich, Houston, Jacksonville,Jamaica as a whole, Key west, Kingston,Jamaica,Lafayette,LA, Lakeland fl, London,Melbourne, Miami, Milwaukee, Mobile, Naples,Nashville TN, Nassau,bahamas, New Orleans,NYNY, Ontario, Orlando, Palm bch,Panama city,fl,Pascagoula ms, Pensacola,Pineville,LA,Pittsburg, Port Charlotte,Port st lucie fl, Puerto rico as a whole, Saint Petersburg Fla,San Antonio TX, sarasota, Summerville,SC, Tallahassee,Tampa, Toronto, Tulsa,U.K as a whole,Virginia bch, Wilmington N.C,
