This Ain't No Sanity Clause (noradsanta.org)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	noradsanta.org
Date:	13/12/06 (3910 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Charming site, the kids will love it.

Disadvantages: You may hate Chrimbo

***Introduction***
In approximately 10 days 15 hours 46 minutes and 9 seconds, Santa Clause will be launching his 2006 round of deliveries to the world. Well, that was at the time of writing and will now be less and counting. As millions of us around the Globe start to get excited about what the big man in the red suit and the white beard will finally bring, one way of finding out a bit more on Christmas eve is via http://www.noradsanta.org. I stumbled upon this a few years ago when doing Google searches for various versions of “Father Christmas” and “Santa Clause” to see what was out there for my kids other than the customary e-mail facility to the North Pole. On discovering this particular site, I was delighted and my children enthralled at the notion of being able to track ole’ Santa on his travels.

***Main Page***
As you’d expect, the main portal is a visual assault of red and white equipped with sleigh bell, sound midi files and an explosion of Flash. A simple welcome features a piccie of Santa and a list of content links flanks the left hand side of the text based passage. There are links to send both NORAD and Santa an e-mail which, I’m sure, many do although I'm still waiting to hear that someone has been seen an "out of office" e-mail reply from the big man's Polar office *grin*

***Background and NORAD***
The site came about by accident. It all began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. store advertisement for children to call Santa on a special "hotline" included an inadvertently misprinted telephone number which, instead of Santa Clause, included the phone for CONAD Commander-in-Chief's operations "hotline." Far from being spooked by this sudden breach of security, the Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup asked his staff to check the radar to see if there was any indication of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for the North American continent called the North American Air Defense Command i.e. NORAD. As the years went by, the tradition….erm….snowballed as the media jumped on the bandwagon and starting calling for updates too. With the advent of the Internet, the website was born to update the method of tracking Santa and, today, the site is as popular as ever, relying on volunteers to help make Santa tracking possible. Hundreds of volunteers spend part of their Christmas Eve at the Santa Tracking Operations Center answering phones and emails to provide Santa updates to thousands of inquiring children worldwide.

***How *do* they do it?***
Of course, you are sitting there, scratching your collective chins wondering just how this remarkable operation works, aren’t you? Well, NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa including: radar, satellites, Santa Cams and jet fighter aircraft. Everything starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System and this has 47 installations across the northern border of North America. NORAD makes a point of checking the radar closely for indications of Santa Claus leaving the North Pole on Christmas Eve.

Once Santa has been detected lifting off, the method of detection switches to satellite and, perhaps a little sinisterly, it’s the same satellites that gets used in providing warning of possible missile launches aimed at North America! The satellites are located in a geo-synchronous orbit (i.e. always fixed over the same spot on the Earth) at 22,300 miles above the Earth. The satellites have infrared sensors to detect heat. Reassuringly, Rudolph's nose gives off an infrared signature similar to a missile launch which means that the satellites can detect Rudolph's bright red nose.

The third detection system in use is Santa Cam. Originally used in 1998 ( the year the Santa Tracking was established on the web site) NORAD Santa Cams are high-tech high-speed digital cameras that are pre-positioned at many places around the world and only used once a year on Christmas Eve. The cameras capture images of Santa and the Reindeer as they make their journey around the world with the images downloaded to the site for people around the Globe to see in both video and still image formats.

Finally, the fourth detection system in use is the NORAD jet fighter. Canadian NORAD fighter pilots, flying the CF-18, take off out of Newfoundland to intercept and welcome Santa to North America. Then at numerous locations in Canada other CF-18 fighter pilots escort Santa. It’s a bit of a police escort in a way and a little known fact (Have YOU ever seen THAT feature in any of the movies?). To complete the circle, when Santa gets to the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15 or F-16 accompany Santa and his Reindeer. There are about a dozen NORAD fighters in Canada and the United States are equipped with Santa Cams and I understand that there is a petition to be put in front of Tony Blair to do something similar in the UK.

***Other Features***
The “Things to do” link takes the visitor to some charming activities including downloadable colorable books, all with a Christmas theme, a countdown to Christmas, promotional videos, maps of the world split into quadrants, a NORAD bookmark and links that take you to Christmas themed music performed by the United States Air Force Academy Band and the Naden Band of Maritime Forces Pacific of the Canadian Navy from Esquimalt, British Columbia. There’s also a celebrity page which hasn’t got anything on it at the moment but will feature celebrities having their mugshots taken with the biggest celebrity of them all – Mr F Christmas.

***My Experience***
We’ve been using this site for years and I’ve loved seeing my kids excited by the various web updates showing where Santa is in the world at that moment. The updates use the appropriate time zones across the world and a flashing icon indicates Santa's latest position according to what time it is. It’s been a great way to get my lad to go to bed as Santa nears Britain and we coax him with the idea that reindeer hooves may be pattering on our roof any time soon. The pictures that accompany Father Christmas as he reaches the various countries of the world are always adorable featuring children from across the globe and make the whole Christmas experience come alive. We'll almost certainly visit the site again this year although the kids are starting to ask awkward questions now. At 14 and 11-years old, you'd have thought that they would still believe in the world's greatest postman, wouldn't you?

***Summary***
Using the site on Christmas Eve is a thoroughly enchanting way to spend the evening if you have kids and even if you haven’t. For those naughty people who have stopped believing in the big man then think again. Repent now or forever risk staying on the naughty list. Yo ho ho!!

Merry Christmas

Mara

Summary: Santa site for adults and children to track Santa on Christmas eve