DWD (Hamburg) Broadcast Content
Otherwise, for the North Sea and Baltic areas broadcasts include
- Strong wind, gale and storm warnings for German Bight, Western and Southern Baltic Sea, German North Sea and Baltic Sea coast
- Weather report North Sea and Baltic Sea , Weather situation, forecast valid for 12 hours and outlook valid for another 12 hours
- Weather report German North Sea and Baltic Sea coast, Weather situation and forecast valid for 12 hours.
- Navigational warnings for North Sea, Baltic Sea and German coast
- Weather report Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea Route North Cape - Shetlands, The Quark - Gulf of Finland. Weather situation and time series forecast for 2 days
- Weather report North Atlantic. Route Pentlands - Southwest Greenland. Weather situation and time series forecast for 2 days
- Station reports North Sea and Baltic Sea
- Weather report Western European Sea . Route Southern Ireland - Area Canarias. Weather situation and time series forecast for 2 days
- Medium range weather report North Sea , Weather situation and time series forecast for 5 days
For the Mediterranean there are
- Station reports Mediterranean Sea
- Weather report Mediterranean Sea (in German), Weather situation and forecast valid for 24 hours.
- Weather report Western Mediterranean Sea (in German). Route Alborán - Tunis. Weather situation and time series forecast for 2 days
- Weather report Eastern Mediterranean Sea (in German). Route Eastern Tunis - Rhodes/Cyprus. Weather situation and time series forecast for 2 days
- Medium range weather report Mediterranean Sea (in English), Weather situation and time series forecast for 5 days
Around the North Sea and the Baltic this service is a very useful supplement to NAVTEX. Particularly useful are the 5 day outlooks, These give wind forecast very 12 hours for the 5 day period. The values are straight from the DWD NWP model at a few grid points although these are sufficient to give an overall view and much quicker to receive than synoptic charts on radio fax.
In the Mediterranean, the most valuable service is the 5 day forecast which seems to be used and very highly regarded by the majority of serious cruising yachtsmen that I have met. It is a most valuable service for predicting the major strong wind systems such as Mistrals, Libeccios, Tramontanes etc. My experience is that such winds are usually well predicted 4 days ahead and often 5 days. They are an invaluable planning tool. In 4 years of sailing in the Western Med, we have never been caught out by such major and important winds. very impressively, the forecasts are usually good at indicating the end of the strong winds.
Conversely, I have never found the 24 hour forecast to be much use. For this period, the French, Spanish and even the Italian NAVTEX broadcasts are to be preferred.
Elsewhere in the world?
How to Receive RTTY- Dedicated HF/SSB radio
Using a laptop, the normal procedure is to connect the radio to the sound card of the laptop and use proprietary software. I started with the very basic DOS programme provided by NASA. This worked quite well at times but, using Windows 98SE, it seemed to cause conflicts and occasional lock outs. very frustrating. Last year I bought the SEATTY software for about 30 USD, after a trial period and found it excellent. It seems to unscramble messages when reception is so poor that the NASA software would not.
Alternative packages are available from Mscan Meteo and JVComm32. I have had good reports about both. These are more comprehensive and multi-purpose packages that will also handle radio fax, SITOR and GRIB coded information. Mscan has many more bells and whistles for RTTY than SEATTY and these might be useful for North Sea and Baltic sailors. It is may be more appropriate to commercial vessels. But, the best advice is to try the various options and see. In the Med, I have not found a great deal of use for Radio fax and have found SEATTY quite sufficient.
For links to SEATTY, Mscan and JVcomm, use a search engine such as Google.
For
Apple Mac users there is a dedicated Mac RTTY
programme, Multimode lite OSX. It is similar to the
PC programme and can be found at
http://www.blackcatsystems.com/software/multimodeOSX.html
How to Receive RTTY- NASA Weatherman
The Weatherman, shown here by courtesy of NASA , illustrates the display from the 5 day forecast of winds at grid points. The points are fairly sparse. Two points are in the English Channel. One is in the bay of Biscay but, rather curiously, this appears near the end of the Mediterranean 5 day forecast! See the example on another page. A slight drawback to the Weatherman is that it will only receive RTTY messages. If Radio fax is required then a separate receiver will be necessary. If space permits, then the ideal solution is to have NAVTEX, Weatherman and a HF/SSB receiver.
Another drawback to Weatherman in the Mediterranean, currently, is in the choice of the four frequencies. Due to the long term variation in sunspot activity it has become difficult to receive frequencies of 10 MHz and less at those times of the day when the 5 day forecast is being broadcast in the English version on Programme 1. During the day time the 14467, Programme 2 frequency can be used if you have a HF/SSB radio. However, it is not available on Weatherman.
What about those Coded Reports?
In short if you use such software then concentrate on just looking at the data and be very careful if trying to use analyses.
Dealing with corrupt messages
Thus, PMT could be 0.5 (for wave height) and EAR could be 3-4 for wind force. PPZ will be 00Z, QW, where a time might be could be 12. Conversely, a 2 or a 3 where a wind direction might be could be West or East. I download on to my laptop and then try to make sense of such garbling.
