MARITIME LISTENING

In the Philippines I regularly monitor the marine bands and at times also listen in on the Marine weather, my listening spots are usually from Australia's VMC or VMW which can be found at http://www.bom.gov.au/nmoc/rad_sch/ and also from Guam's US Coast Guard, there are times I also pick up NMN.NMC AND NMO these can be found on the monitoring times website on hurricane and weather frequencies. You can also check websites like this one listed in the Carribeann http://www.caribwx.com/ssb.html or many more.

The reason I am mentioning this is you can learn alot about the weather in the Pacific,Atlantic and Indian Oceans, these stations post the lastests in current weather conditions or storm conditions such as in there areas of operations.

From my home I tune and listen to Guam,which has a station that broadcasts 2 times a day weather forecasts and gives out current information on Typhoons,tsunami and other related items. I usually hear them strong on 8764 and 13089 khz ,there website is listed at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/hfvoice.htm.

For us Hams and weather buffs who follow the storms like that of Katrina and others it comes in handy to monitor the location of these storms and be prepared for any problems that might happen. I was on Guam after several storms hit the island and like many seen the after results of what happen. I had the rare chance of visiting the Pacific Shortwave stations of Adventists world radio, and KTWR, known as Transworld radio which had antenna damages. Rain and wind was the most of the damages and some building collapse and even seen a few oil tanks on fire.

Listening to these broadcasts are gonna be more common very soon as Hurricanes of the Atlantic and the Pacific (also called Typhoons in Asia areas,and Cyclones in the south pacific and Indian Ocean) will be forming and crossing oceans and islands,like the Philippines,Guam and Hawaii and alot more in the world. Tune to these stations and send a QSL report to them and let them know they been heard and you will get a QSL response in return. They will appreciate your comments as well.

Enjoy the world of what many call Ute listening and if you can join the yahoogroups that are interested in those transmissions. Ute listening is fun and can be done on a shortwave receiver that operates in SSB. The stations listed broadcasts all there info is usually found in USB mode. In the Philippines there marine bands can be found on the 16 mhz bands, usually around 16545-16560 khz. I recall my neighbor in Cavite who is a Filipino seaman mentioning how he was listening to the radio and hearing some of the female operators singing while waiting for contacts. So you might pick up some in the area. My station consists of a standard Sangean 909 and also a Icom 706mk2.

As we say in Ham radio 73 and happy dx hunting