Hay... why does my other provider have charts and OT doesn't

[FAS]

We now and then get calls or e-mails from some customers who apparently use two (2) SST chart services at the same time. These calls, in particular, come during times off "on and then off" cloud cover.

The subject of the calls, and main question is almost always the same..." I subscribe to another online subscription service "XXXXXonline" and they have charts posted today....WHY DON'T YOU???.... WHAT'S GOING ON?.... HOW COME THEY HAVE CHARTS POSTED AND YOU DON'T?

Well my friends.... After hearing this a couple of times, we decided to look into this complaint as we could not understand it. We have subsequently investigated this matter several times now and this is what we found each and every time:

The "other online SST provider" apparently takes a good satellite pass from during the day and makes charts from that pass and posts those charts that evening around 11PM or midnight with the NEXT DAYS DATE PRINTED ON THEM.

For instance.... we just checked our competitors site just a short while ago today 8-12-04 at 10PM on and low and behold, we see a chart set dated 8-12-04 and that set is 60-70% clear. We know that, right off the bat, this cannot be correct as today's photos were no where clear as our competitors set represented. We also noted that the images looked very familiar to us.

A bit more checking showed that the set that we just observed and was dated 8-12-04 was actually a Noaa 17 satellite pass from 2-PM YESTERDAY 8-11-04! OVER 30 HOURS OLD!

We know because we had actually used part of that pass for our 8-11-04 8PM set last night! Commmon now... give us a break!

Apparently they are taking the best shot of the past 24 hours and posting that shot up at the END of the day (end of that 24 hour period) as a posting for the entire NEXT day.

Anyone using these charts will think that they are current when in fact they can be as much as a day or more old at times. None of the charts are time stamped! We happen to know how old some of their charts really are because we are in the business and can identify photos quite easily, or else we would not have a clue either!

No wonder some customers contact us and say "they have charts posted...why don't you...!!!

Well...theirs your answer.... Do they do this to be intentionally misleading?... We don't think so and we hope not, but it ultimately ends up being misleading "none the less" and it's a horrible way to collect and post data.

Please know that we here at Oceantemp do not utilize such absurd posting policies .... if there are no clear images we say so...period! We date and place the time of the photo on each chart so that there is no misunderstanding. We are not afraid to place a time a chart that is several hours old if that was the only photo available! We are very careful regarding matters such as this.

So...if you use the "other" online service and you see something posted that we do not appear to have... "be advised" that you may be looking at something that is already a day old with today's date..... You in fact have most likely seen that image already on our site a day before!

You have been warned!

Thank You
Oceantemp