On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:56:20 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:26:23 -0800 (PST), "Katie O'Hara"
wrote:

I am considering buying a portable short wave/ssb receiver for when I
am cruising the Bahamas. My thinking is that I might be able to get
weather forecasts. Can anybody comment on this? Can you get the
usual NOAA weather channels on VHF in out islands? Am I correct in
thinking one can get weather an shortwave/SSB?

There are a number of different ways to get weather in the Bahamas.
With a good antenna you can pick up the NOAA VHF broadcasts from Miami
in the north western islands. If you are near Marsh Harbour in the
Abacos you can tune into the cruisers net at 0815 on channel 68 VHF.
There is also a lot of other good information available on the
cruisers net.

Next best is an internet connection where you can access all the usual
sources, too many to list here, but weatherunderground is usually
decent.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/hdfForecast?query=bahamas&searchType=WEATHER

There are various strategies for getting on the internet but most
people in the Bahamas are using some sort of extended range WiFi
adapter. The ones from Island Time PC are excellent:

http://www.islandtimepc.com/marine_wifi.html

Last but not necessarily least is shortwave SSB radio. US National
Weather Service provides so called High Seas weather broadcasts in
voice on various frequencies. These are wide area forecasts and
somewhat cryptic to the uninitiated. Practice before you go and
consider recording the broadcasts so you can replay them as needed.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/hfvoice.htm

The HF Radio service that I consider most useful are the weather FAX
transmissions but these are the most complicated to receive. You will
need a patch cord between the audio output of your receiver, and the
audio input of your PC. You will also need some special software on
the PC:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=pc+weather+fax+software

Some of these are better than others, and some are free. They all
require a fair amount of setup and practice however. Don't wait until
the last minute. Two of the oldest and most popular are JVCOMM32 and
PC HF Facsimile 8.1 For Windows:

http://www.jvcomm.de/index_e.html

http://www.ssccorp.com/products.htm

There is another solution he

http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Produc...tid=MFJ-1214PC

When you get it all working you can tune into the NWS FAX
transmissions from New Orleans and get very detailed weather
information:

http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/gulf.shtml

The best frequencies in the Bahamas for New Orleans weather FAX are
typically 4317.9, 8503.9, or 12789.9 KHz depending on time of day and
propagation conditions.

Here are some other resources:

http://windom.cybox.com/ssb.html

for whatever its worth.

A friend cruised for a few years between Singapore and the Philippines
using a "yacht boy", I believe its called. A smallish transistorized
radio that received Am-Fm and some of the shortwave channels. It had a
BFO so it would receive SSB also. He had it connected to a laptop and
received both voice weather and weather charts

He may be still using it :-)

Cheers,

Bruce