In this chapter I’m going to write about how we receive voice (well, not really voice, per se) and text forecasts while at sea and in remote places.
Why Copy Forecasts
OK, I know I have beaten this horse before…probably nigh unto death. But one more time: You should not rely exclusively on GRIBs for your weather information because GRIBs are simply the unfiltered automated output of a single computer model, whereas a forecast is prepared by a meteorologist from multiple models that have different strengths and weaknesses.
OK, now we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the best way to receive forecasts.
Thanks a lot for your very helpful weatherpost. I’m using saildocs but I didn’t know how easy it is to receive the text of any website over my satphone, having never read the saildocs instructions carefully.
But I have a question regarding radio teletype (RTTY) text messages. In Europe this type of weather forecast is widely used and the German weather service DWD can be received even in Greenland on their HF frequencies. It’s very easy to receive them either with a specialized decoder-receiver or with a general SSB-receiver and a computer. Of course these messages don’t cover American and Canadian waters, although they reach out as far as the Azores and Cape Farewell. Times and freqs can be found at http://www.dwd.de Website and forecasts are in English and German. The UK has a similar service.
I would not bother to go through the aggravation of getting set up to use RTTY since I believe that you can get all of that information and more using the technique described in this post. Also, RTTY is very old technology that I would guess will be phased out sooner rather than later.
It’s interesting to note that with almost every commercial ship out there using satellite-based systems for weather reception, even Navtex is getting less and less mind share from the information distribution authorities.
You scared me when you voiced your conviction that RTTY will be phased out, since that still is my main source for weather forecasts in text form. I mailed the German weather service and NOAA asking what they think of the matter. The Germans answered very quickly and wrote that RTTY indeed is old technology and it’s been here for so long already because it works so well. They have no plans whatsoever of giving it up, instead there are plans to commission new transmitters for this service. I have no answer from NOAA yet.
Receiving RTTY (and probably SITOR on your side of the Atlantic) means very little “aggravation”: all you need is a simple radio capable of tuning in on SSB shortwave frequencies and a computer with a (free) software like JVComm32. Such a receiver and a computer are on most boats anyway.
Or, like myself, you have a dedicated weather receiver that can be set up to lock in on the best frequency automatically, that decodes, displays and/or prints the messages, weather and Navtex. Since this receiver can be left switched on all the time on minimal consumption, it delivers the latest message as soon as it is released. It’s like having a continuous direct connection to your weather service. And, unlik satellite based services, it’s free.
Now it may be that it doesn’t work as well in the US and Canada, the equivalent would be SITOR from Boston, I don’t have enough experience with that.
Sorry, I did not mean to scare you. I have no inside information that RTTY will be discontinued. My thinking was simply that, for boats that have a sat phone, so much more information can be acquired at very low cost (text forecasts tend to download for a few cents) that I saw little point in the added expense of RTTY equipment, or the time and effort to learn how to use it. But since I have never used RTTY, I may easily be wrong.
Also, the advantage that say Irdium has over RTTY is that the former is a digital system and is therefore immune to garbled transmissions – either you get 100% of the message or nothing at all.
Having said all that, if RTTY meets your needs, go for it. However, do keep in mind that financially constrained governments everywhere are looking for ways to save money and obsolete systems with few commercial users are likely to go first. As an example, weatherfax broadcasts from the USA have come very close to getting the budget ax twice in the last ten years.
One more thought on this: If I had had a satphone from the beginning, then I probably would go along with you and wouldn’t have bothered with RTTY. But since I started with coastal sailing first and gradually widened my range, I had my weather decoder and it served me well (and still does). After a couple of years of cruising without I decided to get a satphone. So the set up for RTTY was there first and I still like it and will stick with it and its advantages. But isn’t that the normal way for almost all cruising sailors, to step up gradually and isn’t it sensible to get a simple and inexpensive way to receive weather information before buying a rather expensive and – for coastal sailing – “overdressed” piece of gear like a satphone? I’d say that along European coasts there is no need for a satphone, because the coverage of RTTY is so good. And in port you easily find access to the internet (well, almost everywhere) for grib files and such. But of course it may all be different your side of the Atlantic.
You are absolutely right, these things evolve and, as you say, a sat phone for coastal sailing is overkill.
“Or, like myself, you have a dedicated weather receiver that can be set up to lock in on the best frequency automatically, that decodes, displays and/or prints the messages, weather and Navtex. Since this receiver can be left switched on all the time on minimal consumption, it delivers the latest message as soon as it is released. It’s like having a continuous direct connection to your weather service. And, unlik satellite based services, it’s free.
Hi Hans, I’d be interested to know what your dedicated weather receiver is and how your setup works with the software you mentioned. Thanks!
We have started to look at all the weather options for our new boat and I think we will go with an Iridium sat phone to bring our weather home. The costs are not as bad as the Iridium with hard antenna and 500 minutes for first year seem to be about the same a buying a pactor 3 for the Icom 802. The different providers for sat phone have some excellent weather programs from weather fax around the world, gribs, weather texts and, most importantly to us, lots of 500 mb faxes. On our last boat we used the Iridium sat phone for weather and emails with great success, 2007 to 2009. I had thought about going to a pactor/ssb/ham this time around but we think the sat phone is the fastest and quickest way of obtaining weather when you really need it.
Sounds like a good plan. I have to say that, if I did not already have one, I would have to think long and hard about installing an SSB these days. You can buy a lot of Iridium minutes for what a full SSB set up costs.
One thing though, you don’t have to go to any of the “providers” to get all those products since you can get the same products via SailDocs for free. I would also recommend UUplus for your Iridium software and email server—much better than Iridium’s own software.
Yes, we will most likely go with UUplus, we had that service on our last Iridium. What I liked best about UUPlus was if we needed help with a problem they were always there by email or Iridium phone, no wait for help. We will still have an SSB, both my wife and I have our ham license and we do find uses for having SSB on board. Also we did have a Furuno weather fax on our last boat and used it everyday but some days it was hard to read the faxes and that could cost one seriously.
Do you print out all your weather downloads so that you can study in detail the progression of weather data? I’m wondering about the quality of some of the 12 volt printers that are out on the market. Three years ago we used an AC printer that was cumbersome but it did give good quality prints, we could read every wind barb on the printed paper.
Does tuning in to SailDocs and downloading information via a sat phone eat up the precious minutes on the sat phone?
Yes it does. There is no link between SailDocs and Iridium. SailDocs provides data, no matter how you receive it: SSB/Pactor, Iridium, Internet, whatever. Iridium transmits data and voice, and no matter where that comes from, you get charged.
If you wish to access SailDocs without paying per minute charges you will need an SSB and a Pactor modem. But you can buy a lot of Iridium minutes for what that would cost you. Last summer we used Iridium for blog posting, e-mail, and weather and we did not stint. Even so, over 5 months we only used some 550 minutes.
Part of the key to not using too many minutes is to use UUplus to drive the Iridium, instead of the driver software that comes with the Iridium, which is very inefficient.
Hi,
I am new at your site, but spend some very intersting hours reading your books. A big thank you!
In the meanwhile, I saw a lot references for using SailDocks, but I miss comments on using the solution that the US-based company GMN is offering (also for free if you have Xgate). It looks like it is quite similar to SailDocks, or do I miss something?
And up till now I saw only once the Iridium Pilot mentioned, although it comes in the same investment range of SSB, but with remarkable lower prices per Mb and additional advantages on a sat phone. If possible I would be happy to read your comments on this. Aspecially if someone has experiences with it.
Hi Luc,
Welcome here and thanks for joining.
I should start off by explaining that we are not a product review site that tries to keep up and compare all the possible options for a given function. (I say “tries” because that’s almost never done well.) Rather we pick a product that we have used in the real world offshore that we know works and write about that. That’s why we are big believers in SailDocs/sailmail, it has stood the test of time. Also the people behind it are some of the smartest and most experienced in sailing.
Does that mean there are not other good products? Not a bit of it. But we have not tried them offshore so we don’t opine on them.
Or to put it another way, rather than trying to pick the best (near impossible to do well anyway) at a given time we want to write about what we know works.
Having said all that, I took a quick look at GMN and I can’t see any benefit over saildocs. It’s the same data as saildocs and you have far fewer options.
Here’s a post on anchors that explains this policy in more depth: https://www.morganscloud.com/2015/10/09/anchor-tests-the-good-the-bad-and-the-downright-silly/
Hi Again Luc,
I took a quick look at Iridium Pilot. I think what they are doing here is multiplexing several channels because at, at least as far as I know, the base speed of Irdium is governed by the current first generation of satellites (2,400 bits/sec). They are also doing a bunch of compression, as do most Irdium options.
More here:http://www.mailasail.com/Support/Iridium-Bandwidth
The base speed of the Irdium network won’t increase until they loft the new generation satellites in the next few years. (Irdium Next.) My guess is that when that happens all current Irdium hardware will become obsolete, so I certainly would not invest in Pilot unless I received a written guarantee that is was going to work, and work well, with Irdium Next.