AmateurRadio.com

With the exception of the UKAC events, weekends are the only time I get on the radio really. I occasionally sneak on during the week but it generally attracts a groan from ‘er indoors. This weekends CQWPX contest is a great opportunity to chase a bit of DX. I got my first and so far only VK contacts from home with my homebrew loft mounted Cobwebb during a contest so I can’t complain.

But what else is there. Well apart from the CW portions of the bands there are other things to do on the air. One of them is something I’ve never even looked at before Wefax.

Normally my weather information comes from t’internet nowadays and maybe this kind of thing is a bit legacy and perhaps not long for the airwaves but I’m sure it serves a purpose for shipping and perhaps far off places.

So how do you ‘do’ Wefax? In my case I tuned to 8,039.100 USB (Have a look here for a good primer and the frequencies and schedules are here) with the trusty Angelia SDR and coaxed the audio in fldigi with a less than ideal set of patch leads and a rather noisy Soundblaster USB souncard. The Angelia is a great receiver so it gave the best chance for this compromised solution. Fldigi will decde Wefax for you so its just a case of selecting the Wefax mode and aligning the signal on the waterfall, nothing to it.

After some awful screeching and scrawing that reminded me of when fax machines were in offices and hey presto images started coming through. Adjusting the slant and horizontal alignment is easy with fldigi and as you can see the raw images are pretty good.

And here is the output. I’m guessing its going to rain!

So if you’re thinking that SSB contesting isn’t for you and you’re at a loss as to what you might want to do with your expensive rig, then have a scout about the bands outside of the usual ham bands. You never know what you might find.