From: Jeff Orrock - NOAA Federal [mailto:jeff.orrock@noaa.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 5:00 PM
To: Coastal VA EM; TV Media
Subject: Norfolk NOAA Weather Radio Off The Air
I am sending this to a large audience since the Norfolk NOAA Weather Radio system serves a fairly large portion of the Bay and Surrounding areas as well as inland locations to Suusex and Franklin.
The NOAA Weather Radio system located in Driver, VA (serving ll of Hampton Roads and Tidewater) experience a significant hardware failure last week. Water entered the transmission line some time ago and during the last hard freeze the water froze and busted the line. This means all new cabling has to be run up the tower to the antenna, a distance of 600 feet. Since this much work has to be done we are also going to install a new antenna. We are procuring the parts now which we will have by next week. We will also coordinate with riggers to perform the work. With all this in mind expect the NOAA Weather Radio broadcast to be off the air for the next 3 to 4 weeks.
Due to hardware failures the Hampton Roads NOAA Weather Radio broadcast transmitted on 162.550 MHz will be unavailable for the next 3 to 4 week, through at least mid February. Weather information for the entire Hampton Roads are can be found online at weather.gov/wakefield.
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Jeff Orrock
Meteorologist in Charge
NOAA/NWS Wakefield, VA
jeff.orrock@noaa.gov
(757) 899-5730
