Receiving weather forecasts offshore

Gilbert Park devises a low-cost solution to receive weatherfax information using a portable radio, an aerial and a tablet device

- Gilbert Park

When offshore, the ability to receive weather forecasts when there is no phone or VHF reception is crucial as it gives you the time to avoid or prepare for a storm. There are many ways of doing this. Satellite internet access is becoming increasingly common, but the equipment and running costs remain high.

Shortwave radio is another possibility, but again the equipment costs are high, there are a limited number of sets available and a license is needed to use one. On the positive side, though, sending and receiving information is free.

I am planning a trip that will take me offshore for four days when I do the practical for my RYA Ocean Yachtmaster. Hiring a satellite phone was one option but to hire one with a charger, receive it and pay for the data then send it back would costat least £100-200. I already have a satellite tracker (SPOT X) that will let me stay in touch with my shore contacts as it can send and receive SMS messages inexpensively. I started looking at other alternatives.

It took me almost a year (it was a great lockdown project) to develop a system that I feel is reliable enough to use safely for this trip. It uses freely available data from Navtex (Navigational Text Messages), synoptic weather charts from Fleet Weather in Northwood and Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD, the German Weather Service) as well as Radioteletype (RTTY) Weather forecasts also from DWD (in English and German).

There are three parts to the system: the receiver, the aerial and the software transcription of the information received.

1. The receiver