Radar Product Central
Collection Dissemination Service
(RPCCDS)

The National Weather Service has a central collection of 42 different WSR-88D radar products (level III data) in process. The data can either be obtained by directly connecting to the Gateway for an immediate receipt of the products through a "multicast" flow or via standard anonymous FTP from the Gateway file servers. The documentation on the products and instructions on download procedures for the client receiving software needed for the multicast dissemination can be found below.


Documentation on the WSR-88D data central collection and dissemination process used at the Gateway.

• File Transfer documentation on how to FTP data from the Gateway file servers
• Gateway FTP description of the radar data products on the file server (subdirectories and file names for retrieval)
• Directory & File Standard used for establishing Gateway file server product subdirectories and file names
• Data Formats of radar products are found in the following NEXRAD ICDs 2620001I - ICD For RPG To Class 1 User and 2620003I - ICD For Product Specification. The suffix letter “I” in this example, refers to the RPG software build the ICDs were released with. The ICDs are updated with each RPG software release (now on an annual release cycle in the spring).
  
• Upcoming WSR-88D Software Changes that may impact RPCCDS users
  

Agreement and Fee Schedule (pdf) for the access to the "Radar Products Service" via dedicated line connection to the RPCCDS.

Users can access the "Radar Products Service" via dedicated T1 communications line to the NWSTG. All radar products that the NWS is centrally collecting are available through the RPS. The RPS became operational with the termination of the NEXRAD Information Dissemination Service (NIDS) on January 1, 2001.

Users may obtain a second IP address to allow them to simultaneously feed the data stream to a second server. The one time connection fee for users choosing a second IP address is $1,000. The recurring maintenance fees are twice the fees listed in the agreement. Users also have the option of ordering two separate T1 communications lines to access the RPS. Users with two T1 accesses will be assessed two one-time connection fees ($2,000) and twice the recurring maintenance fees.

Any user interested in subscribing to the RPS should first contact Julie.Hayes@noaa.gov at (301) 713-0864 x120.



Available Radar Products:

• Multicast and FTP Server Products - WSR-88D products available from the multicast and ftp servers.
  
• NOAAPORT Products - WSR-88D products available from NOAAPORT.
  
• NEXRAD Site ID - WMO header information for the WSR-88D sites.
  
  
  

Software needed to receive the Multicast data stream from the Gateway:

• Software Implementation a guide for installing the client software used for the multicast services of the Gateway
  
• Download the WSR-88D Multicast Client Software for multicast receiving in realtime

The Office of Operational Systems has a major web site for information on the NEXRAD WSR-88D at the NEXRAD Radar Operations Center (ROC) located in Norman, Oklahoma. The web site has a large amount of information on site locations, data generation, and general operations.