Application of the Product Availability Monitoring System (PAMS) to the Radar Product Central Collection/Distribution Service (RPCCDS) Demonstration

The National Weather Service (NWS) is developing a capability to collect radar products from all offices and make them available to users both inside and outside the NWS. This capability is called the Radar Product Central Collection/Distribution Service (RPCCDS). The RPCCDS will collect at least 24 radar products from each NWS, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and Department of Defense (DOD) radars using AWIPS communications. It will automatically transmit the products to dedicated clients, and to a file transfer protocol (FTP) server for access by the Internet and by clients with direct lines into the NWS Telecommunication Gateway. The NWS's Office of Systems Operations developed a powerful and indispensable tool, Product Availability Monitoring System (PAMS), to quantify the effectiveness of the NWS communication networks to deliver weather-related products from data sources to field sites, as well as from field sites to field sites. PAMS has been a powerful aid in the previous Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) and AWIPS Commissioning efforts. PAMS will be used to measure the timeliness and reliability of the RPCCDS. This paper summarizes the results of this effort.