Weather reports at sea

[ctelfer38]

Anyone with experience of setting up a laptop and a receiver to receive images of synoptic charts at sea? Looked at some of the SSB and Sat/phone equipments on offer and so far all look to be quite expensive. Requirement is not for ocean passages but coastal and offshore between UK and the Baltic. Looking for something to supplement VHF and Navtex reports on the North Sea crossings. Comments welcomed. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Talbot]

With the use you are expecting, a simple HF receiver like the NASA HF3 should be sufficient, with JVFax software

Alternatively you could consider the NASA Weatherman

Or go deeper into use of Grib data - a good staterting page is http://www.franksingleton.clara.net/home.html

 

[jay]

I dont know anythin about reciving via HF having never done it but I do use ugrib for downloading grib files when i have a wireless or gsm connection - works worldwide and seems ok to me - might be worth a look www.grib.us

 

[ctelfer38]

Thank you both. These look like good leads. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[davidbains]

You really have to be a it of a radio/computer buff to persevere with time consuming wefax. And even then you're still interpreting the fuzzy with interference synoptic charts yourself. I find it best to have automatic 12v equipment, and as Talbot suggests a Weatherman gives you painless RTTY wx fcsts for two to five days which is just what you need for crossing the North Sea and Baltic. Basically the Navtex and VHF give you the daily fcst and the RTTY gives you the outlook.

 

[Eygthene]

I know its not strictly "at sea" but I connect my laptop to the Internet via my mobile phone when I'm in port or at anchor. I download five day's synoptic charts from www.weathercharts.org/ukmomslp.htm It takes only five minutes to get all eleven charts (today's analysis and every 12 hours for the next five days)
I find that I have too much else going on to be bothered with doing this when I'm actually sailing along.
I used to use JVFax with a shortwave SSB radio before I had the mobile phone facility. It was better than nothing, but not nearly as good as what I use now. The downloaded Fax charts are available only at set times, take 10 minutes each to receive and there is a lot of interference ie black dots on the chart which makes it hard to see the important details.

On the other hand, when far from shore-based mobile phone signals, it would be a sustitute.

 

[ctelfer38]

Quite so. I currently start all of my passages to and from the Baltic with a portfolio of synoptic charts- which of course are progressively less useful each day. The Weatherman looks to be a good easily managed solution to updating the longer term forecast each day. Thanks all for your responses. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif