[nws-changes] 20100816: mixed case and special characters-Fwd: ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC

• To: nws-changes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: [nws-changes] 20100816: mixed case and special characters-Fwd: ADMIN NOTICE NOUS41 KWBC
• From: Linda Miller <lmiller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:21:06 -0600

813
NOUS41 KWBC 161415
PNSWSH

Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Headquarters, Washington DC
1020 AM EDT Mon Aug 16 2010

To:      Subscribers:
         -Family of Services
         -NOAA Weather Wire Service
         -Emergency Managers Weather Information Network
         -NOAAPORT
         Other NWS Partners, and NWS Employees

From:    Herb White, Dissemination Services Manager
         Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services

Subject: Mixed Case and Special Characters

This Public Information Statement is a reminder of Service
Change Notice (SCN) 10-28 sent on May 28, 2010.   In SCN 10-
28, NWS announced plans to use mixed case and additional
punctuation and other characters that are part of the
International Reference Alphabet No. 5 in national
administrative and change notice messages with the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) Heading of NOUS41 KWBC and
AWIPS Identifier of PNSWSH starting August 16, 2010.

NWS also sent a Public Information Notice on May 28 requesting
user feedback on the proposal to change NWS plain language
text products to include both upper and lowercase alphabetic
characters. All users of NWS information are encouraged to
provide feedback on this proposed change through September 15,
2010, by using the online customer survey form at:

http://www.weather.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=mixed-case

NWS is testing the switch to mixed case with these products as
part of a risk reduction effort. The notices are not
operational warning and forecast products and do not originate
on the AWIPS system, for which non-critical software changes
are frozen until after AWIPS II implementation.

This change offers users of NWS text products the opportunity,
in a nonoperational environment, to identify and correct any
anomalous behavior of their systems and their customers
systems resulting from the change.  User comments regarding
the change to national administrative and change notice
messages will be vital in determining future transition steps
and timing of those changes.

The upper and lower case letters, punctuation and characters
are the US-ASCII printable character set and part of the
International Reference Alphabet No. 5.  Following this
sentence are the printable punctuation and special characters,
each separated by a space, that may be used in future national
Public Information Statements the WMO Heading of NOUS41 KWBC
and AWIPS Identifier of PNSWSH.

 !  # $ %&   ( ) * + , - . /
 : ;<  =>  ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` { | } ~

If you have questions, please contact:

Herb White
Dissemination Services Manager
NWS Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services
1325 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Herbert.White@xxxxxxxx
301-713-0090 Ext. 146

National Public Information Statements, Service Change Notices
and Technical Implementation Notices are online at:

http://www.weather.gov/os/notif.htm

$$
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