Thanks Rainboe, I am not sure that anyone actually uses direct instrument feed to their ATIS in a continuous way . The countries I have worked with get a 30 minute, or whenever, METAR from their weather instruments and feed that to the ATIS.
What I am asking here is opinions on using continuous feed from the instruments.
As for knowing what information the pilot has taken I think the ATIS alphabetical designator is supposed to take care of that. Wojtus has pointed out that too frequent update is not good for them (ATC) and I can see that too.
There does seem to be some aspects of ATIS that could do with rethinking!
For those locations where the ATIS is only updated at routine METAR time and assuming the user tunes in several (5?, 10?) minutes prior to arrival the wind information could be 30 or even 40 minutes old. This is certainly something we (i.e. our company in our product) can do better where instrument readings are available to us.
Regarding the cranes and grass cutting etc that is not something we get asked our input on though in my experience (22 years in an air traffic organisation, non-ATCO) which is now 20 years old, I am well familiar with the inclination of some people to include every trifle.
Wojtus and any other ATCOs I really would like to talk about update methods and will appreciate your comments.