'Cape Naval' HF weatherfax?

[El Pinguino]

Q?
Are the South Africans still broadcasting wefax on HF ?

The info on the NOAA Wefax pdf is dated 2009 and I seem to recall receive some charts in about 2012.

However currently there is no info on the South African Met Bureau site suggesting they still broadcast them.

Anybody with recent reception reports?

TIA

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Q?

Are the South Africans still broadcasting wefax on HF ?



The info on the NOAA Wefax pdf is dated 2009 and I seem to recall receive some charts in about 2012.



However currently there is no info on the South African Met Bureau site suggesting they still broadcast them.



Anybody with recent reception reports?



TIA

Hi, I contacted Bridgett at Cape Naval for you. The answer is "yes, when the weather service bothers to send them the info to transmit".

The frequencies I was quoted are:
4012.1 KHz
7506.1 KHz
13536.1 KHz
18236.1 KHz

Download the 04:30 Schedule for full info.

Times now appear to only be at 05:00, 10:30, 15:30 and 22:30 (all UTC)

I must admit that I have not heard of anybody in this neck-of-the-woods using WX Fax for many years, so cannot confirm the above info as being accurate. From talking to Bridgett, it appears quite sporadic!

In the old days the WX Fax service was transmitted by Cape Town Radio, but they closed down the HF WX Fax service as their satellite service had taken over. The SA Navy took over, but there are few funds these days to maintain the ageing transmitters, never mind the staff to actually operate the service.

John

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by JohnT

Hi, I contacted Bridgett at Cape Naval for you. The answer is "yes, when the weather service bothers to send them the info to transmit".

The frequencies I was quoted are:
4012.1 KHz
7506.1 KHz
13536.1 KHz
18236.1 KHz

Download the 04:30 Schedule for full info.

Times now appear to only be at 05:00, 10:30, 15:30 and 22:30 (all UTC)

I must admit that I have not heard of anybody in this neck-of-the-woods using WX Fax for many years, so cannot confirm the above info as being accurate. From talking to Bridgett, it appears quite sporadic!

In the old days the WX Fax service was transmitted by Cape Town Radio, but they closed down the HF WX Fax service as their satellite service had taken over. The SA Navy took over, but there are few funds these days to maintain the ageing transmitters, never mind the staff to actually operate the service.

John

Many thanks, John. I shall pass that info on down the line to Jeanne Socrates - where the original request came from.

[barnakiel]

Good to know they are still around. Their products are very useful on approaches.


On word of warning though there seemed to be some issues with timing when I was there - some charts were not aired, some charts with wrong dates (old) were aired in wrong slots too. With the rate of change the weather shows out there, ALWAYS make sure you have checked the dates in the header / corner of the received transmission!


!!!


Cheers,
barnakiel

[El Pinguino]

This may be of interest..
https://goughlui.com/2019/02/16/radi...frica-updates/