New Webcam

This week I upgraded the web cam to a new Panasonic BB-HCM735A IP Network Camera. The camera has PTZ and zoom capability. Shortly I hope to be able to add that feature to the web page and let the viewer control the camera. The camera looks to the southeast onto Swan Creek and in the morning it works hard to deal with the sun and reflection off the water.

This time of year we have lots of geese who make Swan Creek there home. Enjoy the view and let me know how it works for you!

New Hurricane Tracking Page

Introduced a new hurricane tracking page this morning. It's powered by hurricane tracking software from Stormpulse.

Make sure to read the "How To" material at the bottom of the page. It will give you all of the info you need to use the features in the map.

Forecast added to the Cell Phone information

Today I had a chance to add another page to our Cell Phone weather information. This Forecast page has the latest forecast information for Rock Hall, MD. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Cell Phone Forecast for Rock Hall now available

Us this link in your cell phone browser - wap.belcak.com - and you'll get detailed information of current weather from The Belcak Weather Station in Rock Hall, MD USA.
Notice that the opening page, on top and bottom, has a link to Weather Graphics This will give you current radar and webcam images directly on your phone.

Since I can't test all model phones, if it's not working well on your's, send me a message and let me know......hopefully I can make adjustments.

I have some more ideas for additions to this feature, check back often for the latest updates.

Crab Traps

Later than usual, but today I put out 2 carb traps off the dock. Hopefully we'll get our share for the season......I'll let you know how we make out!

Storm July 31, 2009

It lasted just 10 minutes, I recorded 47 mph gusts with 38 mph sustained winds and it turned out to be the most destructive we've had in the 5 years we've lived here.

We had two large trees uprooted and 5 snapped in the middle.

You can see the pictures here July 31 Storm

Now the clean up will begin.

Live Webcam turned on!

Today I started to serve a live feed from a JVC TK-C700U color camera. The view is south across my backyard and onto the upper part of Swan Creek in Rock Hall, MD.

The camera is an old video surveillance model that feeds to an ATI Radeon 7500 video card. The capture software is Image Salsa .

The camera is operational from +/- 60 minutes of sunrise and sunset and it's presented on my web page using Adobe Flash.

The feed has a 5 minute timeout to save on bandwidth and requires a page refresh if you wish to view it longer.

Clear Sky Clock Page Added

To the Astronomy tab I have recently added the Clear Sky Clock page.

The Clear Sky Clock can show at a glance when, in the next 48 hours, we might expect clear and dark skies for one of many observing sites closest to Rock Hall, MD, in this case The United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD USA.

It's is intended for amateur astronomers. The forecast data comes from a numerical weather model run by the Canadian Meterological Centre.