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Yes, in a niche that will not go away: the National Weather Service still broadcasts weather charts by HF radiofax to ships at sea. The charts ride shortwave radio from Coast Guard stations around the US coast, and any vessel with an HF receiver and decoding software can print them. It survives because it works hundreds of miles from shore, where cell service does not reach.
| Station call sign | Location | Coverage area |
|---|---|---|
| NMF | Boston, Massachusetts | Northwest Atlantic |
| NMG | New Orleans, Louisiana | Gulf of Mexico and tropical Atlantic |
| NMC | Pt. Reyes, California | Northeast Pacific |
| NOJ | Kodiak, Alaska | Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea |
| CFH | Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canadian Coast Guard) | Canadian Atlantic waters |
Radiofax, sometimes written WEFAX, is fax transmission over radio instead of phone lines: an image is scanned line by line, encoded as audio tones, and broadcast on shortwave. A receiver decodes the tones back into the image. The technology is old, which is the point. HF radio propagates over the horizon by bouncing off the ionosphere, so one transmitter covers an ocean basin. No satellite subscription, no data plan, no registration: a chart that reaches every ship listening on that frequency at that time.
The broadcasts cycle through surface weather analyses, wind and wave forecasts, sea-state charts, and tropical cyclone products in hurricane season. Schedules rotate through the day so a vessel can catch its region's products. For a small fishing boat or a sailing cruiser crossing an ocean, these charts are often the primary weather input for passage planning, supplemented by voice broadcasts and satellite data where available.
Cost and simplicity. Satellite data plans charge for every megabyte, and a full weather chart is a heavy download at sea. Radiofax charts arrive free with receive-only equipment that needs no subscription and no account. It is also deliberately redundant: mariners are taught to keep backup systems, and a technology that fails differently from your satellite gear is exactly the backup you want. The NWS publishes its radiofax schedules publicly so crews can plan around them.
You can, and shortwave hobbyists do. You need an HF receiver (or a software-defined radio dongle), a length of wire as an antenna, and free decoding software that turns the audio tones into an image on your computer. Reception quality varies with ionospheric conditions, which is part of the fun: on a good night you can pull a Pacific surface analysis from California on the East Coast, and on a bad night you get static. Search for the current NWS radiofax schedule for the frequencies and times.
Radiofax is the exotic cousin; everyday faxing travels over phone lines or the internet. LetterAgent sends faxes by request to your AI assistant: you describe the fax, approve the exact quoted price after the page count is verified, and pay once. It handles US and Canadian fax numbers, and fax is available in testing while activation is in progress.
Ready to fax it? Fax with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is sent.
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