I've been toying with the idea of installing some form of weather fax capability on board and wondered what the the latest thinking is. From what little looking around I've done it seems that there are essentially 2 ways to go; weather fax through ssb/pc/software that you download and view on the screen, and dedicated weather fax machines that spit out paper faxes. The latter at this point is kind of atractive because it's pretty automatic, but I know almost nothing about the ssb/pc/software approach.
I'd like to hear what experience you'all have and any tips and/or information you can pass along. If you're not yet setup for weather fax, what conclusions if any you have reached in your own research.
Hope to hear from you
Pat
patrick.t@attbi.com
Weather Fax options
Moderator: Jim Walsh
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John R.
Re: Weather Fax options
Check the archives on this topic as I and others have responded to this inquiry in the past. I use a Icom M700TY and a SEA (Stephens) Guardian 2000 decoder in conjunction with a 12V Diconix printer. It works well but getting ink cartridges for the printer is not as easy as it once was, however they are readily available online as are the printers. There are a couple other small 12V inkjet printers on the market that you can use. A used and inexpensive fax decoder can be found in marine consignment shops or at marine electronics shops and marine flea markets. I bought mine new several years ago and it has been very dependable but I also have a second backup unit. The fax decoder is hooked to the SSB via a simple audio connection cable with a gain control on the radio, fax decoders need a high gain setting from the radio that's why it is important that the radio have a speaker bypass on the volume gain.
The printer is connected to the decoder via a basic computer printer cable. You supply 12V to the decoder and printer and you are all set. Just tune in your SSB to a given fax frequency according to the broadcast schedule and viola out comes the fax from the printer, the decoders and PC software programs have adjustments to fine tune the chart appearance. There are also self contained fax units like the Furunos that incorporate the decoder and printer all in one unit but if something dies in that you lose everything, the printer and decoder. I prefer separate components for that reason. You don't need a SSB transceiver all you need is a receiver. Sitex makes a nice one at reasonable cost or you can just get a radio receiver like a Grundig as long as it has a audio out jack that you can adjust the volume on.
The JVcomm32 is one of the PC software equivalents that is available. I have the demo on the boats PC but I have not registered the demo to a full working version but it seems from the demo as a nice package. The problem with software fax is that it depends totally on your onboard PC so if you have that and nav software all running on the same machine and the PC goes down now you have nothing. That's one big no no. In my opinion it is prudent to have as many separate units as possible so you don't lose everything if one electronic component on board should fail. The last I knew the JVcomm was selling for about $70 for a fully registered version. You can download the demo from their website and play around with it. You can pick up used fax decoders for well under $100 and obviously there are some at a higher price, new ones are not cheap. You could conceivably have a full weatherfax setup on board for a couple hundred bucks or you could spend thousands. Personally my thought is if you can afford it go with a SSB transceiver over just a receiver. It not only gives you weather fax capability but now you have long range communications and back up to your VHF, email capability, and dependable emergency communications. Plus it is fun to listen to stuff from all over place.
The PC versus a stand alone decoder is a personal choice. For a SSB transceiver I would only go with a Icom or SEA, they have the best reputations. Others are known to have reliability problems.
The printer is connected to the decoder via a basic computer printer cable. You supply 12V to the decoder and printer and you are all set. Just tune in your SSB to a given fax frequency according to the broadcast schedule and viola out comes the fax from the printer, the decoders and PC software programs have adjustments to fine tune the chart appearance. There are also self contained fax units like the Furunos that incorporate the decoder and printer all in one unit but if something dies in that you lose everything, the printer and decoder. I prefer separate components for that reason. You don't need a SSB transceiver all you need is a receiver. Sitex makes a nice one at reasonable cost or you can just get a radio receiver like a Grundig as long as it has a audio out jack that you can adjust the volume on.
The JVcomm32 is one of the PC software equivalents that is available. I have the demo on the boats PC but I have not registered the demo to a full working version but it seems from the demo as a nice package. The problem with software fax is that it depends totally on your onboard PC so if you have that and nav software all running on the same machine and the PC goes down now you have nothing. That's one big no no. In my opinion it is prudent to have as many separate units as possible so you don't lose everything if one electronic component on board should fail. The last I knew the JVcomm was selling for about $70 for a fully registered version. You can download the demo from their website and play around with it. You can pick up used fax decoders for well under $100 and obviously there are some at a higher price, new ones are not cheap. You could conceivably have a full weatherfax setup on board for a couple hundred bucks or you could spend thousands. Personally my thought is if you can afford it go with a SSB transceiver over just a receiver. It not only gives you weather fax capability but now you have long range communications and back up to your VHF, email capability, and dependable emergency communications. Plus it is fun to listen to stuff from all over place.
The PC versus a stand alone decoder is a personal choice. For a SSB transceiver I would only go with a Icom or SEA, they have the best reputations. Others are known to have reliability problems.
Patrick Turner wrote: I've been toying with the idea of installing some form of weather fax capability on board and wondered what the the latest thinking is. From what little looking around I've done it seems that there are essentially 2 ways to go; weather fax through ssb/pc/software that you download and view on the screen, and dedicated weather fax machines that spit out paper faxes. The latter at this point is kind of atractive because it's pretty automatic, but I know almost nothing about the ssb/pc/software approach.
I'd like to hear what experience you'all have and any tips and/or information you can pass along. If you're not yet setup for weather fax, what conclusions if any you have reached in your own research.
Hope to hear from you
Pat