Tuesday, November 21, 2006

It's Antarctica Time!

This is a good time of year to listen for Antarctica, because it's spring down there, and various people and agencies are setting up for summer, or doing yearly maintenance of equipment.

Here's a cool, in fact probably downright cold, Antarctica blog. It's by David Ruth, a sculptor who has received an NSF grant to study ice textures and forms. He's a good writer/photographer, and this should be an outstanding blog all season.

A relatively up-to-date list of Antarctic HF frequencies is on the Utility World Web site.

Those who like to copy Chilean Navy FAX charts of the Antarctic zone just south of their country will recognize this one in the November 20 blog entry. The copy is sure better than what I get up here in California, but then they're a heck of a lot closer.

When I get them, they look like this, if I'm lucky:



Playa Ancha Radio broadcasts the weather faxes on 4228, 8677, and 17146.4 kHz. Here's the schedule as of 2003. Some times have shifted slightly:

1115 SURFACE ANALYSIS
1130 SATELLITE IMAGE
1630 SURFACE ANALYSIS
1645 SATELLITE IMAGE
1915 SIGNIFICANT WAVE MAP (MTS)
1930 SATELLITE IMAGE
2200 SURFACE ANALYSIS
2215 ICE REPORT
2230 12HR WINDS BARB ISOTACHS FORECAST
2310 12HR SURFACE FORECAST
2325 SATELLITE IMAGE

More info here (in Spanish)

Yes, one of the transmission periods has QRM from USCG COMMSTA New Orleans.

You can also download the Chilean Navy surface chart and satellite image here. The page is in Spanish, but it's intuitive. It's not as much fun as copying them off the air, but at least you'll finally see what's in all those itty bitty letters that never show up.