Originally Posted by
Dick Smith
I think I donated $160,000 to Airservices to put in some extra weathercams but didn’t specify the location or price.
I have been assisting other people with weathercams at about $1,000 a go and they seem to be working really well at places like Mittagong.
I’m not sure what ASA has been paying for their weathercams. Possibly they are getting some gold-plated unit that is really not necessary. As long as the unit does not produce a false image it is going to add to safety overall.
I am happy to add a few more $1,000 encouragements for people to put in weathercams in difficult locations. I think they are really great for safety.
Hi Dick,
Thank you for your generous offer.
I was contacted only just this morning about some safety critical locations in Tasmania that local flying groups are keen to get coverage on with cameras and any assistance would be very welcome!
The BOM Cameras that ASA provide are very expensive units from Europe with Swiss optics apparently. But, they serve a very different purpose, which is mainly to detect fog and low cloud in the dark. The pictures that we see from them are cut down low bandwidth versions that suffer often from halo effects.
We’ve got some 80+ sites on our webcam network with upwards of 170 cameras, however it’s difficult to get funding for off-airport locations. We don’t charge services or for profit on the cameras so we don’t have spare funds for such locations. For airports that don’t want cameras for some kind of security or privacy reasons(which is quite frustrating) I’ve had to resort to contacting local fire brigades to use their comms towers.
You can reach me at
[email protected] or via PM if that is of interest to you.
Thanks!