Mob controller voiced concern regarding the facility radar equipment's failure to properly display w...

Narrative:

Aviation safety is being compromised at mob approach due to FAA's inability to fix the radar that serves the approach. For at least one week; the radar has not worked properly. Specifically the radar will not display weather. This past week we have had numerous thunderstorms and we have not been able to help pilots in our airspace with weather avoidance. Since this is the number one cause of accidents; one would think that the FAA would do what it has to do to fix the radar. While they have tried to trouble shoot the situation; they have not let the local technicians work after business hours to figure this thing out. The FAA should be paying overtime and/or flying experts in to fix the problem as soon as possible. As of right now; our local technicians are still trying to figure this out. At this moment we are having to use cenrap (a feed from center radar) to work aircraft. This reduces our capacity and still does not not display any weather for controllers to see. This is unacceptable.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MOB Controller voiced concern regarding the facility RADAR equipment's failure to properly display weather information; alleging management failed to authorize overtime and/or request any additional technical input to resolve the problem.

Narrative: Aviation Safety is being compromised at MOB Approach due to FAA's inability to fix the Radar that serves the approach. For at least one week; the Radar has not worked properly. Specifically the Radar will not display weather. This past week we have had numerous thunderstorms and we have not been able to help pilots in our airspace with weather avoidance. Since this is the number one cause of accidents; one would think that the FAA would do what it has to do to fix the Radar. While they have tried to trouble shoot the situation; they have not let the local technicians work after business hours to figure this thing out. The FAA should be paying overtime and/or flying experts in to fix the problem ASAP. As of right now; our local technicians are still trying to figure this out. At this moment we are having to use CENRAP (a feed from Center Radar) to work aircraft. This reduces our capacity and still does not not display any weather for controllers to see. This is unacceptable.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	845686
Time
Date	200907
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	MOB.TRACON
State Reference	AL
Environment
Flight Conditions	Mixed
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	No Aircraft
Person 1
Function	Approach
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Experience	Air Traffic Control Radar 22 Air Traffic Control Supervisory 1
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types

Mob controller voiced concern regarding the facility radar equipment's failure to properly display weather information; alleging management failed to authorize overtime and/or request any additional technical input to resolve the problem.