CONTACT:  Patricia Viets, NOAA/NESDIS         FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
          Stephanie Kenitzer, NOAA/NCEP       10/14/98
          John Leslie, NOAA/NWS 

An era of satellite data distribution ended today when the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decommissioned its GOES-TAP system, an analog system that provided near real-time imagery from weather satellites to users around the country.

The GOES-TAP, operated since the mid-1970s by NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), has been replaced by a state-of-the-art digital system known as NOAAPORT/AWIPS.

"The action to replace GOES-TAP was prompted by National Weather Service requirements to access digital data products at faster rates and higher resolution via enhanced communication lines," said Helen Wood, director of NOAA's Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution. The GOES-TAP equipment was unplugged by Wood and Louis Uccellini, director of NWS' Office of Meteorology.

The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is an information processing and display system, a cornerstone of the modernization of the National Weather Service. The AWIPS interactive computer system integrates all meteorological and hydrological data, including satellite and radar data, on one workstation. This enables the forecaster to issue more accurate and timely warnings and forecasts.

The NOAAPORT broadcast system provides a one-way broadcast of NOAA environmental data to NOAA and external users. This service is implemented by a commercial provider of satellite communications using C-band technology. Weather data observed by Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) sensors and National Weather Service observing systems are processed and sent to the AWIPS Network Control Facility in Silver Spring, Md., which routes the products to the appropriate NOAAPORT channel for uplink and broadcast.

GOES-TAP used leased telephone circuits and was limited to distribution within the United States. NOAA's National Weather Service was the primary user. Since that time, GOES-TAP has served about 200 users, including the military services, the Federal Aviation Administration, airline companies, television and radio networks, and private companies.

In its early days, GOES-TAP provided imagery solely from NOAA's GOES satellites. Since then, a wide variety of satellite products were added, including imagery from the European geostationary satellite METEOSAT, the Japanese Geostationary Meteorological Satellite, and NOAA's polar-orbiting satellites. GOES imagery is available on the Internet at: http://www.goes.noaa.gov The site has numerous products and links to data from other satellites.

Note to Editors: More information about GOES-TAP is located at: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/GOESTAP