More Russian Navy CW Monitoring with decode of SYNOP message

 As you may know I have been listening to the Russian Navy morse code messages on HF in my latest shortwave adventures. Last night I received a message from Yakov Grebelsky UCBC5 which was something like this:

UCBC5 .......SML FOR RCD88 RMB97.....17181 99568 10118 41598 71304 10170 40240 54000......

This is a routine weather observation which can be decoded by hand (eg 99568 means latitude 56.8 degrees north etc). In fact even just those two first sets will give you its lat 56.8N and long 11.8E in Kattegat.

But inputting these codes into metaf2xml will give you all the data including temperature, wind direction, pressure etc in a visually appealing and easily understood format.

This is quite an intricate area of shortwave that many may be unfamiliar with but keen to have a bash at, so hope this gives you inspiration! It's great fun. And CW, unlike SSB, propagates much better.

GL 73 Adam