Even though for the Thuraya you will need a costly Sat
phone connection.
Satellites will slowly take over, but I do not think in a snap.
Further there are still many many
fishing boats in less developed countries who are likely to receive
weather via
SSB.
If you only run a receiver there are no licensing issues.
I don't think SSB is really dead yet.
By the if you put a how to Wiki together you might want to include these two postings in my other thread:
Here is a procedure for PC:
1)
Get SSB
radio (Tecsun PL-880 or similar) & add external
antenna if necessary.
2)
Install Audacity freeware on your PC
3)
Connect
radio line out to PC radio line in.
Adjust volume level. See here:
https://www.hagensieker.com/wo...lin...ng-short-wave/
4)
Switch radio on (or set time when it should switch on if it has a timer built in).
5)
Dial in broadcast frequency
6)
Start Audacity & set its timer to start recording a little before broadcast.
7)
Leave PC on or set it to wake from sleep at a given time & start Audacity.
8)
Save broadcast recording file and decode HF
weather fax image by playing it back to
OpenCPN weatherfax
plugin or SeaTTY.
This minimises
power consumption and avoids another expensive electronic box for recording.
Enjoy.
&
The Target probably works as well but has no timer to wake up as far as I am aware off. Correct me if I am wrong.
Apart from that it's 60€more expensive than the more versatile and more modern Tecsun PL-880.
But, you are right, it is another option.
I tested the above mentioned PC procedure.
Works fully automatic and can even switch the PC off after recording.
Three things though I just found out:
1)
When you use the "radio alarm", on the PL880 make sure to set sufficient running time for the
alarm (which is basically the radio playing on a set frequency /station). It can run up to 90min which should be way more than enough for most HF fax receptions.
2)
When you use windows task scheduler to wake up the machine from standby, you need to manually go into the energy plan which you use and set explicitly the option to wake up from any scheduled event.
Otherwise it does this only for windows system processes, which means it keeps sleeping on user scheduled
events.
3)
You can set the windows wake up task even to daily at the same time. Similar you can set the PL-880 radio
alarm to run daily.
So you get an automatic weather fax every day for free over the air, even without
internet or
VHF reception.
The only thing you need to do apart from decoding at a moment convenient to you is give the file to be recorded with Audacities timer module a new name for each recording.
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