DUAT.100- WEATHER MODEL100 DUAT DOWNLOAD FOR TRS80 MODEL 100, 102 DUAT.100 was created to automate the downloading of specific "weather products" from CONTEL DUAT service in early 1990. Some familiarity with the 100's logon string and TELCOM program, is assumed. DUAT.100 controls all the communications routine from BASIC by CALLing the com routines as required. It is based on a program I wrote during the FAA's experimental phase when the DUAT prototypes were being tested, and so has been more-or-less in use for some time in this earlier guise.) By early summer, 1990, all the DUAT providers were pumping out weather data, airport and enroute information, warnings, notices, and so on used by the aviation community, but often with an unbelievable, unnecessary "data overkill". Many pilots haul out their laptops or microcomputers, log on to the service, then request menu items that suggest they'll get just the weather data they need for a planned flight. In the process, they must patiently wait online while they are admonished not to carry the remains of former President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. And during summer afternoons they receive mandatory tornado warnings for the central twister belt even though their planned route lies in Maine or Oregon. Now, DUAT.100 allows pilots with model 100's or 102's to specify as much or little information as they require, and then it GETS the info without fooling around. The above brief background suggests that pilots KNOW what they want in the way of weather data. If this is you, then DUAT.100 will obviate those frustrations! If you forgot to request a terminal forcast, or want to see whether it's changed, then when you run DUAT.100, you can request that FT all by itself. The best weather-briefing outside standing in the Flight Service Station live, is obtained from EMI AeroComp here on CIS. I consider it the "reference standard," and it's so GOOD you just won't find any regular pilot/users who can fault it. (At least as far as today's state of WX briefings is concerned.) The Contel version of the DUAT weather-and-briefing service is, however, the best one going. I've tried them all. DUAT has built-in protections to discourage access by non-pilots, so to use the service you need to BE one. To get started on this service, have your PILOT CERTIFICATE NUMBER handy, then connect your modem to 1 800 767- 9989. Set communications protocols for any baud rate from 300 to 2400. The system is sophisticated enough to detect and accommodate your preference in parity and word length, but I find "none" and "8" respectively are the defaults. Other combinations will probably work OK, but you can see the host program saying, "Oh, aah, yeah, even parity, 7 bits, OK, stand by one..." Follow the prompts for first-time users, call their 800 help number if you need to, and try it in the non-automatic mode for a while. To use DUAT.100 on Contel DUAT most successfully, go back online and set your user defaulte to a 40-character screen width for the MODEL100, and set screen size for the highest number it will accept. (I never found the "scroll all" command on Contel! I just tell it my screen accommodates 512 lines....) DUAT.100 has been reasonably debugged and works very well on the TANDY TRS80 MODEL 100 and compatibles. It uses the CALL statement abundantly to access screen, UART and COM functions directly from BASIC. These CALL locations are specific to the 100 and 102, but they make screen and com handling very nice! All of the CALL addresses can be found in "Hidden Powers of the TRS80 Model 100" by Christopher L. Morgan (pub. Waite) After making the changes noted below to accommodate your personal signon defaults, connect your MODEL 100 to the telephone network, and set the answer/originate switch to "originate." It should not be necessary to set the communications parameters in TELCOM (They are M8N1E): these are done for you by CALLing routines that first initialise the UART and then set up the protocols for you. (Line 190: CALL28326,0,785. The "785" sets switches for 300 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.) Line 40 contains the 800 access number for CONTEL DUAT as well as the signon string. This string is EXACTLY the same one you keep in ADRS.DO to find and call the service automatically; however the string is concatenated from a couple of string fragments with PW$ and AC$ stored in line 10. Edit line 10 to change these strings to equal YOUR password and access code. After that, you may go so far as to edit line 40, where you can reconstruct the single logon string to incorporate your own password and access. At that time, you should remove them from line 10. Delete lines 1-7 if you want. Lines 20 and 30 should stay at the top of the program code: BASIC scans for line numbers in GOTO statements, and it should find the address quickly near the beginning. Otherwise, it may be hard to keep up with the data flow when the program is loading your weather data. Run the program. The first screen wants you to enter a "LOCID." This is a 3-letter "LOCATION IDENTIFIER" such as VNY or SNA. One or two of the letters can be a number. It won't take 4-character strings. Press backspace if you goof and want to re-enter, then re-enter the ENTIRE 3-character LOCID. If you enter AIRPORT IDENTIFIERS, you can enter as many as you like. Press ENTER when you have entered your last location request. The screen then clears and shows you a menu of weather products. Select 1 or more of these with FUNCTION KEYS. Note the audible feedback. Press F8 when you have chosen what you want. DUAT.100 then logs onto DUAT, gets your requested items, signs off, and gives you a the data one screenful at a time. Press the spacebar to view each screen. Feel free to route the output to a printer by changing PRINT to LPRINT in line 270. As you may know, or learn, you can't request all weather products at all location identifiers. You gotta use a little sense! If you ask for WINDS ALOFT, for example, at an AIRPORT LOCATION, then DUAT will say "soandso does not report this weather type. Therefore, as a general rule --- If you enter AIRPORT IDENTIFIERS, you can REQUEST Hourly reports, terminal forecasts, notams, pireps. (CONTEL DUAT is pretty smart, and does an excellent job of delivering UA's within probably 50 miles of the airport(s) you select. It is a nice feature.) If you enter VOR's you can request winds aloft. (These are pretty neat, too.) If you enter RADAR WEATHER sites you can request RADAR WEATHER. The only radar weather sites around where I live are VQN (Volens, Virginia) and NHK (Patuxent Naval Air Station or Japan Broadcasting Company). I guess BPT is also one of these. Check your FSS.