The National Weather Services robust, high bandwidth, C-Band satellite broadcast system for the distribution of hydro-meteorological data and throughout the United States is known as NOAAPort. The NOAAPort broadcast system has become quite heavily utilized in the last year. During the year 2000, additional National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) model grids, Weather Service RADAR-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) RADAR products, Quantitative Precipitation Estimates/Quantitative Precipitation Estimate (QPE/QPF) grids, and data from the GOES satellites in Rapid Scan Operations (RSO), has been added to the NOAAPort broadcast for distribution to NWS Weather Forecast Offices, River Forecast Centers, NCEP, and users external to the NWS throughout the United States. The result of adding these new data sets on the NOAAPort broadcast has been greatly increased channel utilizations on the NCEP/NWSTG and GOES East and GOES West NOAAPort channels. The results of an engineering analysis on the existing NOAAPort channel utilization and product queuing will be presented. The NWS plans free and open distribution of WSR-88D data over NOAAPort, during the year 2001, and the plans for WSR-88D data distribution in an unencrypted format will be discussed. Finally, the existing NOAAPort system is approaching its design limit with regard to data capacity. The NWS has commissioned an engineering study with the NOAAPort contract team Litton PRC/DynCorp to investigate an upgrade path for adding capacity to the NOAAPort Broadcast System, within the next two years. These NOAAPort expansion plans will also be discussed.
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