Radio Fax from noaa

[longjonsilver]

i click on a link on the pdf available at

www.nws.noaa.gov/os/marine/rfax.pdf

Like they said in this video from the Maryland School of sailing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Axw9hP3P4

It opens up a mail request on my mac addressed to:

NWS.FTPMail.OPS@noaa.gov

with a text of:

open
cd fax
get PYCA00.TIF
quit

Thirty minutes later i get this reply:

<FTP EMAIL> response
ftpmail has failed to queue your request with an error of:
Your job contains no get, ls or dir commands so I am ignoring it

What am i doing wrong? The government pdf has opened up an email request to the server. i get a response, but it claims that there is no "get" command, which there obviously is, because their own document wrote the text and addressed it!

When i try to enter the information myself i get the exact same result.

What is going on here?

jon

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

(...)

it claims that there is no "get" command, which there obviously is,

(...)

100% sure your email is txt?

I got various kinds of errors when our mailing program was not pure txt. (html, etc.)

b.

[Suijin]

Yah if you're using the Mac's default mail app ("Mail") you're going to need to go to mail Preferences, select "Composing" and switch from "Rich Text" to "Plain Text".

[Paul Elliott]

Correct about the text-only email formatting. But you might consider using saildocs.com instead of the NOAA ftp server. Saildocs compresses the images to a lower, but still quite usable resolution, and the filesize is typically half of the NOAA-delivered images. An example:

PYBA01.TIF from NOAA is 30.4 KByte

PYBA01.TIF from Saildocs is 15.8 KByte


To request the file from Saildocs, sent an email to "query@saildocs.com" with the body text "send PYBA01.TIF". For more details about saildocs, send a blank email to "info@saildocs.com".

[Paul L]

Anyone know how to request the Australian Met service weather faxs?

[longjonsilver]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

But you might consider using saildocs.com instead of the NOAA ftp server. Saildocs compresses the images to a lower, but still quite usable resolution, and the filesize is typically half of the NOAA-delivered images.

thanks Paul, that worked just fine on my home computer. i will be studying the weather each day using these forecasts, and my own observations before heading out to sea. Just part of my homework of things to learn before setting sail.

Question: are these what people call gribs?

thanks again

jon

edit: is there some reason that these are turned sideways? 90degrees from horizontal?

[longjonsilver]

Well, the saildocs worked fine, but i wanted to get the feed direct from noaa working as well and found that i was using rich text in my email program. i switched to plain text and this is what i received in return:

begin 600 PYEB86.TIF
M34T`*@``HG#_______]_LI.!DC^GI-D6>@/3FTRSH=,,CG,$=^Z\24,'/TY)
M/U](@CY^_#CGPX/LG'.<*VB<,(X+[D2=Y[>I,T.EW]CH#2)NP_9+O`U+DB3]
M/V/IEEVAM^6W/PB$'H;M[=_^?YWW+VT+(0GZY=^V)?BPC?]A^/]_XZ7M);TM


and so on down the page. Now what?

thanks again

jon

[longjonsilver]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Anyone know how to request the Australian Met service weather faxs?

i found this:

World Meteorological Organization Extranet | www.wmo.int

jon

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

thanks Paul, that worked just fine on my home computer. i will be studying the weather each day using these forecasts, and my own observations before heading out to sea. Just part of my homework of things to learn before setting sail.

Question: are these what people call gribs?

thanks again

jon

edit: is there some reason that these are turned sideways? 90degrees from horizontal?

No these aren't GRIBs. They are images that are created for sending via facsimile (Weatherfax), which is actually an analog radio format. The WFAX images are sometimes sideways because they were originally intended to be received on fax machines that use rolls of special paper with particular dimensions. While most boats have switched to computer reception of WFAX, some people still use marine fax machines.

A GRIB is a "Gridded Binary" dataset. These are merely sets of binary numbers, usually pressure, wind, and wave data, which are decoded and displayed on a computer or some chartplotters. Compared to WFAX, GRIBs can give you a lot of data in a small filesize. However, WFAX can show you things that GRIBs don't (in particular, expert human interpretation), so they are still quite useful.

Search around here on Cruisers Forum and you will find *lots* of information about WFAX and GRIB. Saildocs.com is a great source for GRIBs as well as WFAX images, and also for text forecasts.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

M/U](@CY^_#CGPX/LG'.<*VB<,(X+[D2=Y[>I,T.EW]CH#2)NP_9+O`U+DB3]
M/V/IEEVAM^6W/PB$'H;M[=_^?YWW+VT+(0GZY=^V)?BPC?]A^/]_XZ7M);TM


Now what?

This is actually the image, garbled by a server in between your machine and the NWS server.

Look up the help / instructional file from the NWS - I remember they do discuss this challenge and tell us what causes it.

I get the same result from some of my email boxes/providers but not from others.

b.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i found this:

World Meteorological Organization Extranet | www.wmo.int

jon

Jon
Lots of weathyer info listed there, but I am looking for fax server that I can request an Australian Met Service WeatherFax via Saildocs.

[nwn]

Originally Posted by longjonsilver

i found this:

World Meteorological Organization Extranet | www.wmo.int

jon

Does anybody know if there is still some meteorological station that provides weather maps as a fax for the Med?
There used to be a German station, but I have never been able to get my Furuno receiver to find it.

[Paul Elliott]

The rfax.pdf document from NOAA shows a station in Athens:

ATHENS, GREECE
CALL SIGN FREQUENCY TIMES EMISSION POWER
SVJ4 4481 kHz J3C 8 kW
SVJ4 8105 kHz J3C 8 kW
TIME CONTENTS OF TRANSMISSION RPM/IOC VALID MAP
TIME AREA
0845 SURFACE ANALYSIS 120/576 0600 A
0857 SURFACE PROG (H+24) 120/576 0600 A
0909 SURFACE PROG (H+48) 120/576 0600 A
0921 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+30) 120/576 1800 B
0933 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+36) 120/576 0000 B
0945 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+42) 120/576 0600 B
0957 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+48) 120/576 1200 B
1009 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+30) 120/576 1800 C
1021 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+36) 120/576 0000 C
1033 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+42) 120/576 0600 C
1044 WAVE HEIGHT PROG (H+48) 120/576 1200 C
MAP AREA: A - SOUTH EUROPE , MEDITERRANEAN SEA, BLACK SEA
B - MEDITERRANEAN
C - AEGEAN
(INFORMATION DATED (03/2007)

I see that the info is dated 2007, so I couldn't say if it's still in operation.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by nwn

Does anybody know if there is still some meteorological station that provides weather maps as a fax for the Med?
There used to be a German station, but I have never been able to get my Furuno receiver to find it.

HAMBURG/PINNEBERG, GERMANY
CALL SIGNS FREQUENCIES TIMES EMISSION POWER
DDH3 3855 kHz ALL BROADCAST TIMES J3C 10 kW
DDK3 7880 kHz ALL BROADCAST TIMES J3C 20 kW
DDK6 13882.5 kHz ALL BROADCAST TIMES J3C 20 kW

Haven't tried it.

[Maka]

NOAA is a government agency.
Consider the source and lower your expectations.