SignalsEverywhere: Decoding HF WEFAX Weather Fax with an Airspy HF+ Discovery SDR

Over on YouTube Sarah is back this week with a new video on her channel SignalsEverywhere. In this video she shows how to decode HF WEFAX (weather fax) images using an Airspy HF+ Discovery software defined radio with a YouLoop antenna. HF weather faxes are daily weather chart images transmitted as an analogue signal over the HF bands by coastal stations. They are mostly used by ships at sea.

First Sarah shows where to find a lists of WEFAX frequencies and schedules for her area, and then goes on to demonstrate a WEFAX signal being received and decoded using SDR#, VB-Audio Cable and the FLDIGI decoder.

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Greg

Why do people always tear down other people because of the way they look?

John S Stanley

Personally I liked the video and enjoy seeing the enthusiastic faces of people who have fun with radios. If it’s not interesting to you bugger off and let others enjoy.

Frogman

There are so many videos and write-ups on doing this, why do we need “yet another video”. This one is the worst yet. I don’t want to see someone’s ugly face when learning about SDR. I don’t care who you are, if you’re trying to get attention by showing your face in a video that has nothing to do with your face, you’re ugly and you need to bugger off.
3/10 video. There are far better writeups out there that are much more interesting.

Angus

Agree. Nothing new, just more attention seeking.

Sergej Jonovich

You should be ashamed of your comment Frogman. That was rude and you should apologise.

Nick

The only one who needs to bugger off here is you. I don’t want to see someone’s rude text when reading SDR comments.

There’s allowed to be more than one person and one presentation style when teaching a topic. People can have different learning styles and preferences.

SETI_nut

People getting triggered by the first message need to chill, getting offended is a sign of immaturity.
I agree that the video is difficult to follow and I also hate to see someone’s face in a video when they are not doing a video about their face. The comment made above is a bit blunt, but whatever. What is with people who think that doing anything, no matter what it is, deserves praise. You should always value criticism over praise. Praise does nothing but puff you up, but criticism helps you do better next time, so chill out.
Also can someone explain what the cartoon character girl is in the video thumbnail? I was hoping the video would have that character in it instead of the guy who did the explaining, I am totally not into cute cartoon characters at all, nope 🙂

Nick

People are rightly calling out Frogman for being rude. Constructive criticism is great. But when the criticism is ‘I didn’t like the video because I didn’t like her face’, well, that’s a pretty immature and rude thing to say especially when her face was only shown for a few seconds in the entire video.

Are you also triggered when you see the face of presenters on the news? A conference presentation? A hak5 video? A Linus tech tips video?

SETI_nut

You aren’t even commenting on the right video. This is about the “signalseverywhere” guy doing a video on WEFAX. Lol.

Nick

It’s the right video and I guess you’re referring to me saying ‘her’. I think you’re just being deliberately obtuse now, but in case it’s not obvious: Sarah, who is a she, runs “signalseverywhere” and she did a video on WEFAX.

SETI_nut

No, look at the other videos, it’s a definitely a guy. Don’t be wacky. Same face.
I am a scientist therefore I think the same way about chromosome deniers as I do climate change deniers. You can’t change your chromosomes, and a good portion of the upper hemisphere was covered in glacier barely 10,000 years ago. Denying either of these scientific facts superficially is grossly ignorant, and basing your lifestyle on denying either of these makes you strait up bat-guano crazy.
This blog is dedicated to science, let’s keep it that way.

Nick

And here’s the real reason why you don’t like the video. Nothing to do with the content, but because the presenter came out as trans. No you cannot change your chromosomes, but as a scientist you should be able to understand that gender dsyphoria exists. The brain is more complicated and sometimes doesn’t care what the 23rd chromosome tells your body to be.

SETI_nut

Nick you didn’t read my post. I did not say that I didn’t like the video, I simply said it is hard to follow, which it is, and a good portion of the video’s content is taken up by the guys face but the subjected of the video is receiving WEFAX transmissions. I am not denying that mental disorders like dysphorias exist, but I do think it is wrong and very unkind to encourage said disorders. I think what OP meant to do was critique an aspect of the video, and I agree with that critique. From criticism, we can learn to do better. All of the video space being used for a face in this video could have been used for productive items such as listing discussion points as they are discussed, showing diagrams, etc – It would have made the video much easier to follow. This problem is not common to this guys videos at all – It is very common on youtube and I would say that a majority of videos I watch on there suffer from this to some extent. Now, it’s not realistic to expect every person to understand good video production, and that is why you offer your critique – So they can improve. Critique is *always* a compliment, no matter how negative the critique – Because you are showing that you read/watched/etc the author’s work, and afterward, you cared enough to offer that critique, instead of walking away silently.

Nick

Your post is read. Not all criticism is good. You should not encourage the unconstructive criticism from Frogman. He simply gave a rude put down, nothing more.

Seeing the person talking on YouTube is common for a reason. Most people like to see the person who is talking to them. We’re not machines. And 25 seconds of face in a 6 minute video is not something to get triggered by.

By the way, certain dysphorias such as gender are not considered disorders, and this is accepted by the scientific community. Such dysphorias cannot be ‘fixed’ and attempting to do so results in unnecessary harm. We should encourage people to be themselves, and not try to stamp everyone into the square hole. Especially in tech where we need unique viewpoints to solve problems. At my old tech startup we had several trans engineers in the office, and there was certainly nothing of disorder with them. They had great ideas and were the most fun to work with.