The Wind Report
The Wind Report provides the public with Live wind Speed & Direction from weather stations around South Africa. The public get this Live! wind information, updated every 3 minutes, here at www.windreport.co.za, by Premium Rate SMS and the Cape stations by telephone.The Current System - the Wind Report® v5
The current system is Version 5 which uses locally developed and manufactured iWeathar weather stations. I installed these in December 2007 to replace the 5 year old PC based stations, with their inherent problems associated with PC's at remote sites in a corrosive environment.
iWeathar has developed a vast network of weather stations, and through our association, provides wind data from their stations situated around South Africa.
Our first affiliates in Kwazulu Natal, Wind Report Services, opened 2x stations in Durban along the KZN coast in November 2008.
This website went live in April 2007 offering a one-stop Wind & Weather info site to "Find Out before you Go!" and to help you enjoy your favorite sport in safety. I do the coding and thanks to Alan Kemp for the initial design and graphs and to Nicholas Spagnoletti of Nitric Industries for the data handling.
History of the 'Pay to Use' service
The basis for the current service was laid in 1998 when, after many years doing the wind info on my own, I met two civil engineers who needed wind info to go windsurfing. Piet Streicher and Richard Simpson erected their first weather station at Sunset Beach, and delivered the information via SMS messaging. I approached them to join forces and we made their wind info available to callers to the Wind Report on the 083 VAS service. They erected stations at Hermanus, Langebaan and Swartriet. This association proved invaluable as they started BulkSMS.com along with PremiumSMS service www.titbits.co.za which is the basis of WindSMS and which I today own.
The new expanded Wind Report® (V4) went live in October 2003. Previous versions of the Wind Report were based at each site and connected to an answering machine attached to a single phone line, so only one caller at a time could get wind info at a time. In 2002 Craig Jarvis started kite surfing and needed to know where the wind was. He approached me to join him and expand my existing service. His system used PC's. This service was borne with 7 stations, including affiliate station Cape Sport Center at Langebaan in October 2003. I opened new stations at Witsands near Scarborough, and Cape Point in January 2006.
How it all started
The Wind Report® (Version 1) was started in 1987 by Howard Stasin who manufactured Shaft Windsurfing Booms and accessories and Shaft moulded paddles. Today he is Shaft Mouldings, call them on 021 704-1470 for all your plastic and rubber moulding requirements. He wanted a system to allow him to check the wind around the Peninsula and came across the WindTalker. With assistance from numerous parties he developed his own version and started with stations at Blouberg, Muizenberg, PE (run by Brian Wilson of Suntrax) and 2 machines in Johannesburg. The system consisted of an answering machine connected to the wind measuring system and it used a mechanical voice to tell callers what the wind was doing.
Once I started waveski surfing I needed a superior paddle and met Howard through selling him aluminium tubing. In 1990 I joined him because I wanted to know how the wind was affecting the surf.
We reinstalled Version 2, at the time a state-of-the-art system which utilized natural recorded voice, in late 1990 at the new Blouberg Surf Lifesaving club which was the first redevelopment and landscaping at Big Bay. All components were custom manufactured.
False Bay Surf Lifesaving Club continues to this day to provide the venue for the Muizenberg Wind. This station, in the eye of the South Easter, holds the operating record of 8 years with no failure for our own custom built anemometer developed by Howard.
My next mission was to expand the network and I opened new stations at Imhoff Caravan Park in Kommetjie in late '91 and at the Hottentots Holland Beach Sailing Club in the Strand in early '92, now home to one of the most active Kitesurfing clubs in the country.
Early in '92 Telkom started their trial 087 network and we seized the opportunity to at last generate an income for the invaluable service we provide. We had to install a digital PABX switchboard near their exchange in Bellville to interface with them. Then disaster as Telkom closed the 087 service at the end of '92 due to wholesale fraud, leaving both of us with gaping holes in our pockets.
Howard left the partnership and I continued to fund the service. Eventually with invaluable assistance from electronics guru Greg Chin, who I also met through waveski surfing, we upgraded the equipment to Version 3 using his designed and manufactured new digital voice and answering equipment with off-the-shelf anemometers.
For the next 9 years until October 2003, the Wind Report remained a free service sponsored by my other ventures as I believed in the value of the service.
for more information.
Thank you
Numerous people have assisted me with the Wind Report over the years and deserve thanks. If your name has been omitted please let me know and I will include you.
- Piet Streicher of BULKsms.com for his support and encouragement. He got me started on PremiumSMS and thank you for titbits.co.za the PremiumSMS server.
- Alan Kemp for his help and design in setting up the the original website and the initial graphs.
- Nitric Industries - Ed van Kuik and Nicholas Spagnoletti keep the whole Premium SMS side running. They maintain the system and the server and are available for all your PremiumSMS programming needs.
- Greg Chin wrote the software and designed and manufactured the electronics which powered Wind Report V3. Today he manufactures a range of coinop Jukeboxes.
- Peter Petersen, keen kitesurfer and the windsurfer who started CapeAds, provided advertising support for years which continues today after being bought by Junkmail.
- Peter Stride RIP imported industrial telephone answering machines which formed the basis of the telephone side of the Wind Report V1 & V2. Until his untimely death weeks before his 65th in 2011, he used to waveski surf regularly with me.
Save both your petrol and time
This website provides valuable weather information to help you decide where to go to enjoy your favourite Wind, Surf and Sea Sport.
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