Well, I’m not going to elaborate too long on this, but I went on my first long chase of the 2006 season on Wednesday the 8th. Long story short… 6 hour drive to near the Red River in southern Oklahoma to see a *&$!@-load of cirrus clouds. It appeared for all the world that things would erupt nicely after 4pm or so in the target area, and I KNEW ahead of time that there would probably be a significant problem with high cirrus clouds… but I went anyway. Storms did actually develop a bit farther south of my target in the Throckmorton to Decatur, TX areas just around sunset, but it was at least an hour before that when I threw in the towel and headed back to Dodge.
Now that I have another passionate hobby…photographing wildlife (mainly birds) at Quivira NWR… it’s going to take more to get me out the door for these early season marginal events. Especially with the way gas prices are.
A little about my Kyocera/Alltel setup. In looking at the coverage map on the Alltel site, I knew I would be in a world of hurt for data on the road. There is ZERO coverage in northwest Oklahoma north of I-40 and west of I-35. The route to my target area was through this area, and I can verify I could not connect…even though the Alltel software was seeing a signal, I would get a “could not connect to remote computer” errors….all the way from when I entered Oklahoma north of Laverne until I approached El Reno. The map indicates high speed service in the OKC metro area, and I could verify I got a great connection with impressive high speed performance in El Reno. About 10 miles south of El Reno, I lost this “OKC Metro” signal, and went back into a data void… which the coverage map indicated. I regained service near Duncan, which was my target town…and I downloaded data in a strip mall parking lot for about a half hour. It was a bit slower than OKC Metro signal, but it was still much faster than 56k….almost approaching DSL speed. The coverage map is a great tool, as it was amazingly accurate in depicting the locations that I did and did not have service. In looking at the coverage map, I am very pleased that most of West TX has quite adequate coverage. As well as, of course, all of Kansas, most of Eastern CO and a lot of the northern Plains. The only huge “hole” near where I live is in Northwest OK. I can live with that.
After our expansion into Western Wireless markets we have steadily increased our 1x and EVDO markets. You can expect this to increase in all markets except the areas on OK that you have mentioned and one major market… Tulsa. We are working on something for these areas. One thing you can do if you need an internet connection is to bundle your aircard onto a family plan for 9.99 to 19.99 (depending on your main lines plan) and you can use the aircard to connect to the free, albeit slower (14.4k), QNC connection. This works in “most” areas that you can get a good digital signal.
Good luck on your chases, stay safe!
Bobby
Alltel Data Technical Support
Comment by Bobby — March 29, 2006 @ 1:59 pm