Satellite Observing Systems

Satellite observing systems are unrivalled in expertise in all aspects of satellite remote sensing of the marine environment. Serving the public and private sector organisations by providing:

Cheap TVs for Prudent Shoppers

One imputable law of the marketplace with regard to any new technology is that when competition increases, the price of the product inevitably comes down. After years of shopping for holiday discounts and special sales, high definition television sets have finally become affordable for the average family.

Believe it or not, it is even possible to find fairly cheap TVs , even under a thousand pounds. However, as any experienced shopper should and must know, there is always a compromise for buying inexpensive products. Sure, you might get lucky and find a set at a special sale or promotion. But the odds of that are much lower than you might think. The truth is that is large retailers and electronics stores often only offer a few units, even during large sales. They simply use them to as an incentive to get shoppers into their stores in the hope that they will buy something, anything.

But back to the issue at hand, how do you find a descent set at a discount price? Yes, it is possible. But if you are looking for a high-quality set, you might as well forget it. Stores know that consumers will pay for quality, so you will seldom see deep discounts on any top of the line set. That is why if you want to save some money, you should be looking at middle of the road sets.

In truth, the real challenge for consumers is not differentiating between high quality and low quality sets, that’s easy. No, the much tougher task is to separate the low quality sets from the average ones. What should you look for? Probably the most important thing to consider is the resolution. After all, that’s why you’re buying the set in the first place, right? To get the superior picture that many High Definition sets provide.

However, a little known fact is that many cheap tvs have resolution that is only slightly better than the old analogue sets, which is why you should look for an affordable high definition set with a resolution of 720 pixel lines or better. That is right in the middle of the high (1080 pixels) and the low (480 pixels).

A word of advice for the frugal shopper: when you do purchase your new television set, make sure you call your service provider and investigate bundling options that will lower your bills for cable television, internet, and telecom (mobile and home).

• Consultancy on the applications and exploitation of marine remote sensing,
• High quality marine statistics and climatology,
• Real-time sea-state monitoring from space delivered to ships at sea,
• Training programmes world-wide.

Some of the problem areas recently tackled by us including ongoing programmes, are:

• Calibration of radar altimeters on the ERS-1, ERS-2 and ENVISAT satellites,
• Statistical data on the occurrence of the highest wave at an offshore site or along a shipping route anywhere in the world,
• The prevalence of oil slicks in summer off a tourist beach in the mediterranean,
• Seasonal cycles in the vertical migration of nutrients along a coastline, and their dependence on marine weather patterns,
• A model of sea level changes around Britain's coastline over the last decade,
• The design of an easy-access coastal information system containing data derived from the satellite record,
• Accessibility of environmental information of coastal zones by NATO navies,
• Trends in global climate change revealed in the middle of the Atlantic by satellite observations repeated over a decade.

The latest venture is the design of a system of dedicated microsats that will deliver observations of storm location and intensity in 'real-time' to forecasting centres and ships at sea.

We have longer experience in the field of creating useful marine products from raw satellite data than any company in Europe, and this is reflected in the number of Training Workshops it has been asked to organise around the world.

• We are completely current with the programmes and aspirations of all the major space agencies and we are a leading promoter of 'real-time' constellations.
  
  
• No organisation, whose interest lies in the sea, can afford to remain ignorant of the increasingly relevant role of satellite surveillance to its operations.