At the majority of NATS airports the observations are done by ATSA's using the SAMOS (semi automated met obsevation system) equipment. Most units now will have ATSA's who are met trainers/examiners and will include met observation as part of the overall training. The original SAMOS course was conducted by the Met office and took 3 days to complete. 2 days doing the theory and 1 day of practical observations and using the SAMOS equipmet. This mainly consisted of learning to prod, poke, cajole,hit and kick the SAMOS screen until it produced something that was at least close to the actual weather.
