(WXHURR4.TXT)

                       DOS APRS Huricane Position Extractor

                              by Ken Swaggart, W7KKE
                               (kswaggart@aol.com)

This program reads the marine weather warnings produced by the National
Hurricane Center and creates a DOS APRS backup file ( .BK). The file
can then be imported into APRS and will produce a plot of the storm's
current position, radius of maximum storm winds, and projected track.


WXHURR4.ZIP unzips into the following files:

   WXHURR4.TXT  - This text file
   WXHURR4.BAS  - Quick basic source code
   WXHURR4.EXE  - The executable program
   EDDY.TXT     - A recent sample tropical warning message to practice with

New since WXHURR3:

   1. Now adds the first letter of the storm's name onto the forecast
   position's APRS "callsign". When there are multiple storms in the
   region, this prevents one storm from capturing another storm's forecast
   position.

   2. Corrected a position report error when latitude minutes were less
   than 10.


You can find these warnings at  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/products.html 
Make sure you choose the 'Forecast/Advisory' option, and not the warning
for the general public. The formats are different, and this program
expects the marine tropical weather warnings.

WB4APR's NWSPARSE.BAS, which was designed to monitor the NWS weather data 
continuously, was the starting point for this program.

From the time to time, the Hurricane Warning Center may make a 'minor' change
to the format of the warning message. This may cause the program to either 
not extract any data, or extract garbled data. If you find this situation,
please e-mail a message to me briefly explaining what happend, and also
attach a file containing the message which could not be read by WXHURR1.BAS.
I will attempt to correct the problem and upload a new version.

The storm will be plotted with the hurricane symbol with the storms name
and warning number as the callsign (i.e. BORIS11). The projected track 
will plot a 'dot' symbol and UTC date/time as object name.

LIMITATIONS:  This program only works for storms with positions containing 
West Longitudes and North Latitudes. If you have messages with examples
of warnings for other areas, please e-mail me several examples and I will
try to build a program to handle those areas.

To use WXHURR1, proceed as follows:

1. Find the marine tropical storm warning message from the National
Hurricane Center at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/products.html 

2. Save the warning message as a file and note its directory and name.

3. When you are ready to create the APRS backup file, run WXHURR1.EXE 
and follow the prompts. It will need the name of the file you saved containing
the warning message, and will ask you for a path and filename to save
the created backup file. I always name mine C:\APRS\BAKS\HURR.BK .

4. When running APRS, use the (F)ile (L)oad <path/filename> or 
(F)ile (A)ppend <path/filename>. (The append will not delete the contents of 
your current 'P' screen.) When you hit the space bar, your screen will be
redrawn centered on the storm.

5. By hooking the entry on the 'P' screen, you can uplink the storm's
current position and the projected track to the APRS net.


73, Ken, W7KKE