HF Marine RTTY

[simpilo]

About 4 or 5 years ago I remember decoding HF Marine RTTY transmissions on a frequency between 8400 to 8500khz. I can'gt remember the specific frequency. It would alternate between RTTY and SITOR (NAVTEX). I can't remember it's callsign and I remember it transmitting from New Orleans. I can't find any information other than NAVTEX on the NWS website. Does anyone know if they still use RTTY?

 

[ka3jjz]

Not Baudot RTTY - that mode is essentially dead. Only 2 or 3 stations (apart from hams) use that on a regular basis any more. And you might be thinking about the old Globe Wireless system, which has been shut down for awhile now. Same thing with WLO Alabama and their sister station in Washington state.

There's still a lot of NAVTEX out there, particularly on 518 khz, and several HF channels. Bill Hepburn's site is pretty good on this. See our page here...

https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Testing_Your_New_Setup

And as always, check the UDXF reflector on groups.io for more up to date logs...Mike

 

[spongella]

Simplio, the frequency was 8.472 MHz and was from WLO ShipComm in LA. Those transmissions which were in RTTY were fun to listen to, but unfortunately last I heard they went off the air. This was at least several months or more ago.

A good alternative is as per ka3jjz, set your receiver to 518 kHz and get a NAVTEX decoder, free on the Internet. I used YAND (Yet Another Navtex Decoder). You'll have to wait after dark to hear stations though.

There is still RTTY in the marine bands, but from my experience most is encrypted. Your can also hear weather/marine related RTTY from Germany, check out Pinneberg Meteo, they're transmitting around 10.100 MHz.

 

[ka3jjz]

You're undoubtedly thinking about the German weather service - there's a PDF link to their schedule in the article I gave earlier. And as for the 'encrypted RTTY' - much ship-shore digital traffic on HF is using PACTOR using a Huffman compression technique that renders their traffic unreadable except to their intended audience. There's a lot of STANAG and other encrypted modes out there these days. .

Yes, YAND is but one NAVTEX decoder - there are tons more out there. Keep in mind that any decoder that can handle SITOR-B can also handle NAVTEX, as the protocols are very close.

 

[spongella]

Yep that's the one. And again yes on the NAVTEX/SITOR-B similarities. What I like about YAND is that you can set your radio on 518 kHz and let it run all night, it'll save all the messages so you can read 'em in the morning.

I remember the days when consulates ran RTTY and ships sent grocery requisition lists ashore via RTTY. My setup was a Kantronics Interface and Commodore 64 computer.

Nowadays ships also use satellite (L-band) for comms too. I tried that, got those Intelsat xmissions using a patch antenna and SDR dongle & preamp, but the decoder never worked for me.

 

[simpilo]

Simplio, the frequency was 8.472 MHz and was from WLO ShipComm in LA. Those transmissions which were in RTTY were fun to listen to, but unfortunately last I heard they went off the air. This was at least several months or more ago.

A good alternative is as per ka3jjz, set your receiver to 518 kHz and get a NAVTEX decoder, free on the Internet. I used YAND (Yet Another Navtex Decoder). You'll have to wait after dark to hear stations though.

There is still RTTY in the marine bands, but from my experience most is encrypted. Your can also hear weather/marine related RTTY from Germany, check out Pinneberg Meteo, they're transmitting around 10.100 MHz.

That is correct 8472khz USB RTTY. It was WLO. I had to repurchase Wolphi's RTTY app for that reason. The LW on my radio is only 153-279khz and I am not interested in LW. Probably wait on W1AW's RTTY broadcast to use it. Real bummer WLO went down. Dang government.

That German weather service wont hit my antenna on 10100khz. To low wattage and I doubt they beam this way.

 

[ka3jjz]

Re the German weather service - just because they're low power and aren't beamed this way doesn't necessarily mean you won't hear them. Yes, they are on the lowest end of the shared amateur 30m band, but if propagation is good at the time you are listening, with a good antenna, it's certainly possible. It has, I'm pretty sure, been reported being heard on the east coast. The Midwest might be tougher due to the different path, but if both you and the station are in daylight, it's possible.

 

[spongella]

They are heard quite often on the lower edge of the 30m band here, but there are other frequencies they use.

 

[ka3jjz]

Correct - check the link in the wiki article I gave above. CW and digital are the only modes allowed in the 30m band for hams, so it can be hard to sort out the signal you want from all the other stuff...Mike

 

[spongella]

Bit old, but has some useful info...How to decode NAVTEX | The SWLing Post

 

[ka3jjz]

Yeah, it's very dated- mentioning all that RTTY stuff that is all but gone now. I should really write Tim and ask him to drop it, it's that old...Mike

 

[spongella]

Yeah, it's very dated- mentioning all that RTTY stuff that is all but gone now. I should really write Tim and ask him to drop it, it's that old...Mike

I know, I wrote that in Jan. '16 hi hi.

 

[ka3jjz]

Well then how about an update? You could point readers to the SigIDWiki entry, remove all the old and no longer useful RTTY stuff (even using a hard interface like the Signalink is no longer needed)...you get the idea...Mike

 

[k8krh]

There is a GERMAN COASTAL weather bcst on 40002 I believe very strong at night.
You can also hear KPH from CALIFORNIA only on weekends they use rtty also for wx data, they operate on 12808.5,17016.8,8642 are some of the frequencies.
pob/k8len

 

[ka3jjz]

40002? Nope, that's not HF Sounds like a mixing product or a typo. Anyway that's the Deutsche Wetterdienst station we were discussing earlier in the thread. And as far as KPH goes, according to their website, their frequency usage is cut down due to feedline damage to their antennas. Here is their website

Maritime Radio Historical Society

Mike