Weather fax's at sea

[c_witch]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has used 'HamFax' with linux (or any other OS) and a shortwave receiver to get weather fax's and charts (weather) while cruising. I ask as having a visual fax seems a bit more conductive to planning ones cruising activities rather then just listening to the WX channels. I'd be using it on my laptop and recording the fax from the radio and then decoding and displaying it with HamFax and maybe printing it out as well.

Thanx,
c_witch

 

[RichH]

Not HamFax but something similar.
On a Mac the 'best' is still "multimode" ('light version).

Go to www.WeFax.de ... the world's 'mother' of all WeFax websites for broadcast schedules, equipment news and discussions.


I note that youre from Halifax, so you might also want to consider to get software that is also RTTY (Sitor-B) broadcast enabled so you can 'dial into' the Canadian Maritimes "text weather services" for near and offshore forecasts. Text usually is more easily and more clearly downloaded, especially during the times of poor HF radio propagation.

 

[Bill Roosa]

make sure your receiver has the ability to receive the wider bandwidth for fax. 2800 Hz is a bit short of fax bandwidth. 2800 Hz is the FCC limit for "ham" transmission band width. The receive bandwidth is not important to the FCC so there is no reg on it. bandwidth over 2800 Hz is not that useful to hams so the receiver section also uses that width.
Also; ham fax is not the same as commercial fax so .......
Course the hams have a DIY receiver you can build..... antennas.... but that is ham fax not weather (aka commercial) fax format.
Soooooo, I'm thinking that unless hamfax has a 'commercial' setting it will not work for weather fax. I do know that fldigi has this issue.

 

[Bill Roosa]

OPPSY
I was thinking of the weather sat transmission of pictures that need the wider bandwidth. your SSB ham radios will receive the weather fax transmissions.
Sorry for the confusion.