By the way, the world chart you see is built into Viewfax. Viewfax is
incorrectly interpreting the file you renamed and trying to display it on
top of its internal chart. As others have mentioned, you can get the grips
from saildocs.com in the appropriate format. send an email to
(topic, body ignored) for the formatting details. The
newer versions of Sailmail have built-in query-formatting capabilities.

Many other charting programs have native grip-viewing capabilities, also,
but viewfax is pretty simple and good.

-Paul

wrote in message
oups.com...
OK,

Way new to this. Got a call from the Pacific Ocean today. Friend is
located at 36N 144W. On the SSB he hears about GRIB files. So, I find
them at Globalmarineweather.net and download a few to see if I can help
him.

In short order, I find I either have to buy a bunch of software, or
install Sailmail & Viewfax.

I did.

Now, ViewFax doesn't recognize the GRIB files as a valid format.

When I check the properties of the emailed GRIB files, I see a "BZ2"
extension.

So, I go to the DOS prompt (yeah I know, real archaic) and rename all
of the *.grb.bz2 files to *.grb.

Now FaxView sees the file, but when I open it, all I get is a chart of
the whole world with NO weather info on it. Doesn't matter which file I
open (ie 36N144W.24hr.grb, CentralNPacific.wind.24hr.grb) etc. They all
seem the same.

What's wrong with me?

Thanks!