Daryl & Kerren from Coffin Bay write,
When out of range of both VHF and mobile, how to get weather info? Am looking at a reasonably priced SSB HF receiver hooked to the laptop. Was looking at satphone but think it would work out pretty expansive. What would you recommend?
Cheers, Daryl & Kerren

HF Marine Radio Services (Voice and Fax)

The Bureau of Meteorology broadcasts its marine weather radio services for high seas and Australian coastal areas from transmitters at Charleville in Queensland and Wiluna in Western Australia. Identifiers are VMC (for services from Charleville) and VMW (for services from Wiluna). The weather broadcasts are fully automated; therefore a ship cannot call up the BOM on “VMC” or “VMW” and expect a response.

Frequencies – Weather Services via Voice :

Marine Radio Coastal Waters Forecasts and Warnings Schedule

VMC and VMW voice broadcast schedules provide for bulletins of Warnings broadcast on the hour in WST and EST (on the half hour CST).  Weather forecasts for Coastal Waters and High Seas followed by coastal observations are broadcast using a program that is repeated every four hours. The program contains up-to-date forecasts, warnings and coastal observations.

High Seas Forecasts and Warnings Schedule

Radio Fax Schedule: VMC & VMW

Either a HF weather fax machine is required, or you can use an HF SSB receiver coupled to a laptop that has a decoder program using the external speaker outlet to microphone plug.  On Banyandah, we use  JVComm32. This produces black and white faxes and weather charts pretty much automatically once it is setup.

Schedule updated 3 November 2010

Technical Specifications