what is going on with U.S. WEFAX lately?

[Jim_Shaffer]

Is nobody even attempting to maintain it?

First, I haven't heard any transmissions from New Orleans in probably at least a year, then the last few days I've been occasionally hearing a transmission on their frequency that sounds like the cadence of wefax, but with a loud multi-tone signal on top of it, almost as if the "start" signal continues throughout the picture.

Second, I wanted to get some pictures from Boston with the nor'easter going on. Signals are good, but the content only fills up half the width of the frame. (It's not a bad setting on my end -- the entire line is received, it only has content in the first half of it.) And then, I got a satellite picture that was smashed to black-and-white instead of being grayscale.

 

[merlin]

What decoding software are you using?
Depending on HF or UHF, I use Fldigi or SeaTTY.
My problem is not fax decoding, it is noise, weak signals.

 

[Jim_Shaffer]

I'm using SeaTTY.

The problem is not on my end, other stations decode properly.

 

[merlin]

Um, if others are getting good fax image, the problem is on your end.

 

[WB5UOM]

New Orleans hffax station does appear to have a problem.
perfectly strong signal on 4 and 8 mhz just now. But jacked up audio.
I sent a email but dont expect much,good help is hard to find everywhere.
reminds me of the Honolulu Hawaii volmet station waay back when,jacked up, no audio, timing off, I finally found someone to listen to me and they got on the horn and got someones attention.
Even emailed me vavk asking was it working now lol.

 

[merlin]

TBH the noise level here makes for so awful fax copy, but yea, audio levels are important, so is the bandwidth.

 

[WB5UOM]

Actually got a response back saying that "We check our broadcast's to ensure proper transmissions. New Orleans has had limited operation for some time."
Then he asked me how far from New Orleans I am.
I sent a picture comparing New Orleans signal compared to Honolulu's broadcast signal....
I think I read somewhere awhile back that the equipment being old and the future of the service in question, they wernt spending money on it...

 

[merlin]

A couple things to consider: Time of day and propagation. Also, New Orleans beams to the gulf and south Atlantic.
Honolulu beams mostly to south pacific. Boston beams to the Atlantic. PT Reyes beams to the Pacific. The latter is a hard catch for me irregardles but rarely do get good copies. Boston is like there or doesn't exist. New Orleans, about the same Honolulu is very rare for me.
I am in the pacific northwest. When I lived in California, I was close enough to Pt Reyes I got that 5/9, 24/7
Another monkey wrench is their broadcast schedual may not always jive with conditions.