For European seafarers, the broadcaster of choice is DWD (Deutscher WetterDienst), which broadcasts forecasts from Pinneberg, near Hamburg, for the Mediterranean, Atlantic coast, seas in the north, Baltic and Black, and tide buoy readings. Transmitted with the very old (circa 1850) teletype technology, RTTY (Radio-TeleTYpe). The app to install on your Android smartphone is DroidRTTY, (about 5 euros), you can find it here: Marine weather reports in RTTY text. Costs are minimal compared to dedicated equipment. No licensing required these are receive-only devices. Prices range from about 150 to 250 euros. Four models are on the market today, the Tecsun PL660, used for this article, Tecsun PL880, the Sangean AT-909X, and the Sony ICF-SW7600GR. You need a portable shortwave radio that has an SSB button. What you need: Radio with SSB button and DroidRTTY
SSB shortwave radio is almost always installed on board by ocean navigators. The shortwave range, up to 30MHz, can be hundreds of miles. Unlike VHF, shortwave radio, or HF-SSB (High Frequency, Single Side Band) is the queen of maritime links, the favorite of the shipboard mariner.
In addition to the many tips and seafaring culture found in the literature (even the Journal of Sailing has made its contribution with the manual Living on Board), we want to cover an extremely useful topic today: Receive marine weather reports in text format with only a small radio and a smartphone (no Internet!). After the first installment on how to cheaply defeat humidity on board, the second on the dangers of do-it-yourself stoves, the third on the fears of the inexperienced crew, our column continues, dedicated to you who, like me, have always had the dream of living on board.
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