Cactus Navigation and Communication Ltd : Nasa Weatherman (Nasa 010.060)

For many years commercial vessels have received weather forecasts via radioteletype (RTTY) from the German National Weather Agency (DWD). Whilst a few intrepid yachtsmen have tuned into this excellent service, with a general purpose HF receiver connected to a personal computer, results have often been dissapointing.
Weatherman combiness a synthesised HF receiver, a powerful computer and a high contrast display to form a complete, reliable, stand alone RTTY receiver.
Unlike Navtex, which is an international service for navigational and meteorological warnings, weatherman is dedicated to receiving weather forecasts.
DWD operates on a 24 hour continuous schedule and broadcasts continually on several frequencies simultaneously. This helps to cope with the radio propagation and reception conditions which vary with time of day and the distance from the transmitter.
The DWD service is free to yachtsmen but must not be used for commercial purposes. The daily schedule includes times of day, frequencies and areas of coverage. The user can program Weatherman to record information only from areas of interset. The memory is able to store several thousand lines of text. Details of further Atlantic coverage together with the latest schedule are available from http://www.dwd.de.

Technical Specifications

16 lines x 40 characters per screen
ery hidh contrast display with white backlight
Supply voltage nominal 12v
Consumption 50mA @ 12v (100mA with backlight)
Power save auto timer on backlight
Spectrum screen for simple signal analysis
Non volitile program and message memory
Compact sizeL L-150mm, H-112mm, D-42mm
Active Micro antenna: H-175mm x 40mm. 7M Cable

The availability of the DWD signals is dependent on radio propagation and local conditions