Re: [Paddlewise] HF Internet

Peter.... there are several accessories used by amateur radio operators
which will interface nicely with your laptop via a RS232 (or USB to RS232)
connection. The one I have is old (PK232) but it will decode RTTY,
AMTOR/SITOR, CW, and FAX and send the results to your laptop. This is not
the only unit but it's still available in updated form. Special software is
required to take the data in and display it on your screen but it would not
amaze me to discover that someone has written something for smart phones to
do the job.

Ham licenses are pretty handy for sea going folks and not as hard to get as
they once were (generally no morse code requirements any more).

Craig Jungers, K7EXJ
Moses Lake, WA
www.nwkayaking.net

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:37 PM, PeterO <rebyl_kayak_at_energysustained.com>wrote:

> Craig wrote:
> > ....Weatherfax is, however, entirely possible using HF frequencies and
> most
> >modern weather services and coast guards use it. It's not new but it's
> >effective most of the time. But this is by no means a new technology.
> >Winlink is normally used for email and is pretty satisfactory for that but
> >attachments are still problematic because of the bandwidth limitations.
>
>
> G'Day Craig,
>
> Thanks very much for that excellent advice and I've found several scheduled
> HF fax broadcasts for synoptic charts for Australia at
> http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDG00074.shtml . Now the question is
> whether
> there is hardware and software available to link the audio from an SSB
> transmission to a handheld or very small computer and then interpret the
> signal? Sounds like a tall order but almost anything is possible on
> Paddlewise!
>
> All the best, Peter
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