[Paddlewise] HF Internet

G'Day,

In Australia, remote area marine weather prediction usually depends on a
short wave radio and a decent knowledge of local and national weather
broadcast schedules. It's a bit of an art as you don't get to see synoptic
charts and need to develop your own idea of changing regional trends ands
forecast reliability by tracking the broadcast weather observations.

Sat phones are starting to be used but are very expensive to hire buy and
operate - they also chew through batteries at a rate of knots.

I've recently come across HF internet, that is using shortwave radio to
access the internet. http://www.winlink.org/ Makes me wonder how practical
it would be to download a synoptic chart onto a handheld computer linked to
a portable SW receiver. I'm not sure yet how its done, whether one needs an
HF transmitter or whether hooking up to a shortwave receiver is enough? 

Does anyone have any experience in this area?

All the best, PeterO
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