Re: Amateur Radio - to get weather info, access mail etc?

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:10:11 +0100, Marc Heusser
<marc.heusser@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>I am an electrical engineer and could quite easily get a licence for 
>amateur radio.
>Does it pay off if I'd do that to access weather charts etc on a boat - 
>this year in Europe, both on inland waterways in France and in the 
>eastern North sea (between Germany, Denmark and Sweden)?
>
>Apart from a transceiver I have a Mac that should decode the signals 
>without any extra hardware with MultiMode 
>(http://www.blackcatsystems.com/software/multimode.html).
>
>Or are other options better?
>
There are a lot of weather sources on HF/SSB and you don't really need
a ham license to access most of them.  Weather FAX is very useful,
most of the frequencies and schedules are here:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/rfax.pdf

Voice broadcasts are listed here:

http://www.docksideradio.com/PDF%20Files/SSB%20WX%20Forecasts.pdf

There are also "weather routing" services available such as Herb
Hildenberg's broadcasts:

http://hometown.aol.com/hehilgen/myhomepage/vacation.html

You can also receive customized Gridded Binary (GRIB) forecast files
via Airmail or Sailmail.  Airmail requires a ham license, Sailmail
does not.  Both require a Pactor harware Terminal Node Controller
(TNC).

For serious communications and reliable fax reception I highly
recommend purchase of a Pactor TNC.  Paired with the right tranceivers
and Airmail/Sailmail software, operation is menu driven from a PC and
almost automatic.

More info here:  http://www.docksideradio.com