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Obtaining weather onboard, both coastal and offshore, has been very important to Peg and Tom on their trip. Nowadays, there is an almost bewildering number of ways to get a likewise bewildering number of weather 'products' - reports and forecasts in voice, text and chart form. This is a summary, in no way complete, of those systems, some of which have been used onboard Starboard Home. Attached is a listing of URLs where more information may be found. Please email any corrections or additions. VHF: Times and forecast areas for short range voice forecasts over marine radio vary by country. Reports are often broadcast in both the country language and English and sometimes are announced on Ch16. Times are generally available in the applicable "Pilot" (cruising guide). We found the Italian report on Ch 68 particularly useful. SSB/Ham Voice: We haven't come across any HF/Voice broadcasts of offshore and high seas forecasts, similar to the USCG's "mechanical man" broadcasts, except French Radio Monaco, which broadcasts reports and forecasts for the western/central Med in French and English. They will also answer questions from boats after the broadcast. Regularly scheduled and 'pick-up' SSB and Ham voice nets have been both helpful and fun to participate in. Herb Hilgenberg (Southbound II) on 12359kHz at 1930z was very helpful on our crossing. The UK Maritime Mobile Ham Net is hosted by Bill/G4FRN on 14303 at 0800Z and 1800Z. The Mediterranean Cruisers SSB Net on 8122-8131kHz at 0530Z is very active and provides a summary of the Hamburg five day RTTY. Voice nets usually have a member summarize or read a weather report and boats report their local conditions. Pick-up nets are often formed by boats that are making offshore passages at the same time. By reporting their conditions they all get a better picture of what's happening in their part of the world. (See URL links) NAVTEX: Text weather and marine warnings are broadcast in English by most countries on MF (medium range frequency 518kHz) up to six times per day. The effective range is designed to be 200 miles but may vary by conditions. The Greece Service is broadcasting on HF frequency 8424kHz (at 0930/2130z) which expands the range of this mode. All of the Greek forecasts are included. They also continue to broadcast on their three conventional MF local short range stations. (See URL Links) Equipment: 1. Stand-alone units including radio receiver and recording/display all in one unit. These work quite well and can be run to selectively receive by station and content. Boats that have these units report low power usage and are happy with them. Some receivers have a small built in display, and some use a paper tape print-out. 2. HF radio and computer, with a modem-like TNC or receive-only demodulator between them. 3. NEW PROGRAMS are now available that work very well and require only HF radio and a reasonably new computer. These programs use the sound card of the computer to do the translation between computer and radio signals. RTTY: Text
forecasts that are broadcast for shipping by the German Weather Service, Hamburg, throughout the day for
the European area are also used by cruisers. In German and English, they give
area forecasts for up to five days. Receiving method and
equipment is the same as for NAVTEX above but the stand-alone NAVTEX units do not receive
this mode. The NEW PROGRAMS that receive this mode with
just computer/HF radio work well. (See
URL links) HF/Fax: Many countries still produce and broadcast weather facsimiles via HF radio. Equipment required is similar to NAVTEX: either a dedicated stand-alone receiver/printer (different from the NAVTEX one) or HF radio and computer with or without a TNC or demodulator between them. The quality of the charts received is somewhat dependant on radio propagation and the amount of tweaking of radio and program during reception. (See URL links) Email: Having weather reports and forecasts 'delivered' directly to the boat via onboard email equipment is an increasingly viable option. The methods for delivery include: Short Range: Mobil Telephones (wireless), PDAs (e.g.., Palm Pilots), Cell, Mobile or Wireless phones and other new devices that can access the internet or services for email or weather products. We have not used this system but have met some cruisers who do and have reported good results. (See URL links) Long Range: Satellite and HF radio communications through various commercial systems are also available. Some of these services also provide their own weather products. In other cases you have to buy the weather separate from the satellite/HF service. Also, new versions of chart plotting packages provide weather fax overlays in their own formats. These are delivered via the satellite/HF email systems and display the weather information on top of the charts. Special equipment and programs are often required. (See URL links) Winlink/Airmail: We use the ham radio service for both regular email and to receive weather (See Onboard Email). By sending a special email (from the boat) to the Winlink system we can order from an extensive 'catalog' of reports and charts that the system will pull from the internet. The email with attached report will be available for pick up by us minutes later. These reports are received in perfect condition - no skipping or garbling in the text products and no fuzzy, blurred charts. Quite a few of the reports are the internet versions of the ones broadcast by the various weather offices above. We also use our ham radio and SCS-II TNC with the AirMail/GetFax programs to receive direct broadcast NAVTEX, RTTY and WxFax modes above. (See URL links) Saildocs: Saildocs "a free Internet document service for the bandwidth-impaired" will, upon request via email, deliver various converted to text products available on the internet via whatever onboard email system you have. You can also order small weather forecast maps (GRIB files) of the area you choose. (Click here for more information) Routers: There are several professional weather routers who will give pre-departure individual weather briefings and follow up with daily email updates during the passage. (See URL links) Satellite Fax Direct: Some boats have been able to directly receive the signals being sent down from weather satellites to weather services. This requires special receiving radio, antenna and programs. (See URL links) Other links: I have included other links that may be of interest or helpful. I will try to update and add to this list as I discover more. (See URL Links) Updated 3-7-2004 |
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Grand Daughters' web pages: Anna's Home Page, Anastasia's Home Page Isabelle's Home Page
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