[Xastir] NWS Info

[Tom Russo]

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 09:31:22PM -0600, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <kj5fa at sbcglobal.net> flavor, containing:
> Can someone point me to the instructions of how to get NWS warnings to 
> show up on my map in Xastir?

Looks like there is no one spot where all the instructions are clearly laid
out.  Rather, it is scattered about in README.Getting-Started and other 
places.  Even the Wiki doesn't have it clearly stated in a single spot.  This
is unfortunate and should be fixed.

So here goes:

  - You must have NWS shapefiles downloaded and installed in your 
    maps directory.  Get them using the script "get-NWSdata" included in the 
    Xastir scripts directory.  That's /usr/local/share/xastir/scripts if you 
    installed from source.  Leave out the "local" if you've gotten via a 
    binary package.  

    This script must be run as root (or better yet, with sudo).  

    NWS changes the format of their shapefiles often, and this requires us to 
    chase their file format a lot.  If you're not running a recent version of 
    Xastir, you might have trouble getting suitable shapefiles from NWS.  This 
    one script is the single most frequently updated file in Xastir.

    The script in Xastir 2.1.0 or git master was updated recently enough that 
    it should work and get you the right files.  

  - Then, after you've downloaded the NWS shapefiles, you must get them indexed.
    A restart of Xastir will do it, but you could also use the menu entry
    "Map->Configure->Index: Add new maps"
    
  - You must be connected to an on-line APRS-IS source that sends weather
    alerts.  Only those of a particularly high level of urgency are sent
    on the normal rotate.aprs.net or rotate.aprs2.net servers.  
    Firenet.aprs2.net will have the lower level alerts (advisories and
    watches, not just warnings).

  - You must enable display of weather alerts in the map menu and NOT select
    "Disable all maps"!

That should be it.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY
Tijeras, NM  

 echo "prpv_a'rfg_cnf_har_cvcr" | sed -e 's/_/ /g' | tr [a-m][n-z] [n-z][a-m]