Monitoring Maritime Radio Messages with YADD

 

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This is really cool and very easy.  Easy nerd thrills.  

On Friday, Steve VE7SL, put up a blog post on how we can relive the glories of our youth by monitoring HF long-distance maritime traffic.  In the old days the ships were on CW and many report that it was great fun to listen to the various "fists" in action from coastal stations, and from ships on the high seas.  While the CW is long gone, this maritime traffic is still on the air.  Today they are using a SEL call system called Digital Selective Calling or DSC.  

Happily, it is very easy to decode these transmissions.  Steve recommends a program called YADD (Yet Another DSC Decoder).  I downloaded it in seconds and had it installed on my computer in minutes.  Next I had to find a general coverage receiver.  I thought about pressing my old HQ-100 into service, or maybe even the S-38E, but a cooler head prevailed.  I remembered that Farhan had given us a general coverage receiver in his uBITX transceiver.  So it came off the shelf and got powered up.  Around dawn on October 14, 2024 I put the receiver on 8.415 MHz LSB.  I didn't even have to do a real connection to the computer -- I just put the speaker close to the mic and that was sufficient.  

Boom.  Soon I was getting signals from ships afloat and from coastal stations.  I heard Shanghai, New Zealand, and Australia.   See above.   From the U.S., I heard Miami, but the most emotional for me was hearing the station at Pt. Reyes, in California.  This is the station that Dick Dilman W6AWO has volunteered at for many years.  FB.  

Back in 2017, Steve had another post on DSC and YADD: 

https://ve7sl.blogspot.com/2017/08/yadd.html

Thanks Steve! 

This site explains very well what DSC is.  From this I think we can see that there is nothing illegal about using YADD to monitor the DSC alerts (that are all emergency-related):  https://infoshipping.tripod.com/gmdss_dsc.html

Tally Ho! Leo Solders -- Aurora -- Satellites -- Meteors -- Tides -- Starlink

I've been following this YouTube channel, probably since early in the pandemic.  It is not about radio, but in this episode we see Leo actually do some soldering.  NOT BAD!   Lots of other related stuff.  

Here is the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SampsonBoatCo

Update from the Wizard of Wimbledon -- "Always listen to Pete"

In a recent podcast, Pete mentioned that Leo Sampson (the young Brit who is rebuilding the sailing yacht "Tally Ho") should seal the deal with his girlfriend.   Well, it seems that "life coach" should be added to Pete's already impressive list of abilities (homebrew hero, pasta chef, guitar player, etc.)  A while back Pete gave similar advice to Jonathan, M0JGH.   This morning, Jonathan reported in, confirming that Pete's advice was completely correct.  A "mixing product" arrived early in the lockdown. Congratulations to Jonathan and his remarkably radio-tolerant wife.  It seems Leo should be shopping for a ring. 

--------------------------  

Dear Bill and Pete

I hope that you and your families are staying very well during these extraordinary times.

I wanted to thank you both for the reminiscent shout-out during the last podcast, whilst you were suggesting that Leo Sampson of sailing yacht Tally Ho should "seal the deal" with his girlfriend. If our case study is indicative of his future prospects, he absolutely should do! Not only are we happily married but we welcomed a bubbly baby girl into our family at the start of lockdown. (I note that hams refer to children as “harmonics”, but wouldn’t mixer products be a more appropriate metaphor?) 

Apologies for my radio silence of late. Circumstances have allowed me the rare and special opportunity to take more of a lead with parenting, and so my soldering iron has only been wielded for maintenance purposes rather. Your discussion about the intrigue of distant voices emerging from homebrew rigs has whetted this CW addict's appetite to build something for SSB or even DSB, and likely for one of the higher bands...

I feel that I should briefly stick up for the art of CW, though. As a keen amateur musician the ability to communicate through rhythm will always hold a special charm, particularly when you consider that many of my regular EU chums on 40 and 80 are easily identifiable by their “distinctive fists”. I recall a true WW2 spy story in which a double agent, I forget which, was rather unwell but still had to be carried into the radio tent to send his CW whilst lying on a stretcher, otherwise the Germans might notice the absence of this distinctive fist and realize that the game is up!

73 from Wimbledon

Jonathan

M0JGH

A Lifetime of Workshops

 

https://microship.com/consoles/?fbclid=IwAR37yc-NfOrUC93C8QZYXZfakGLf-4eBtPw2php0CpzGHBW3-fb55ciyp0w

It has been more than decade, but we've posted about Steven K. Roberts N4RVE before: 

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-didnt-care-i-had-secret-life.html

https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2009/09/knack-on-bike-steve-roberts-video.html

This morning I came across his recent article about the workshops he's had over the course of his life.  Very nice.  Man, I should have held on to that SP-600 I once had.  You folks will like this: 

https://microship.com/consoles/?fbclid=IwAR37yc-NfOrUC93C8QZYXZfakGLf-4eBtPw2php0CpzGHBW3-fb55ciyp0w

Other Kinds of Knack: Woodwork Wizard! (video)

This guy has some amazing tools, and even more amazing skills.  I find it inspirational to occasionally take a look at other kinds of workshops.   Check it out.  Video above. 

Along similar lines, the young Englishman Leo was in Washington state with his girlfriend when the lock-down and travel bans kicked in, so his work on Tally Ho (and his videos) continue.  See:
https://youtu.be/zXV0ywqj7zY

SITS! or Stay in the wood-shop! 

Boat Knack -- Rebuilding a 1910 yacht "Tally Ho"

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

I present this as part of our occasional series on people with other kinds of Knack.  The young Englishman in this series of videos is definitely in this category.  Watch him acquire the 1910 yacht "Tally Ho" for 1 pound sterling, transport it to Washington state,  SINGLE HANDEDLY  build a boat shed around the huge vessel, and carry out the restoration.  Oh yea, all the while shooting videos of his work. Great stuff.  

I advise you to watch the series from the beginning.   The next video in the series will load automatically. 

Be sure to subscribe the channel. 

Thanks to Ryan Flowers of https://miscdotgeek.com/ for alerting us to this.