“Uh, Charlie, where did Bermuda go?”
My good buddy, David Goren, directed me to the VOLMET frequency for New York Sunday afternoon on 3,485 kHz.
VOMET, for those of you not familiar, is a worldwide network of radio stations that broadcast TAF, SIGMET and METAR aviation weather reports on shortwave radio, and in some countries on VHF, too. All of the reports are broadcast in upper sideband, using automated voice transmissions.
At any rate, they must have experienced a glitch which resulted in the loss of meteorological data for most of the United States. The broadcast preamble is as usual, but as soon as specific airport regions (mostly major US cities and some islands) are mentioned, the report takes a disturbing turn. It’s fodder for science fiction–one is not sure whether to be alarmed or amused by this eyebrow-raising data (or, lack thereof).
The end result becomes almost like a numbers station, sans numbers, of course. Take a listen for yourself by clicking here to download the recording, or listen via the embedded player below:
There’s a new VOLMET frequency for NY… and it it 2000kHz. Yes, thats correct, 2000kHz. This has been reported very recently as early as 3/3/13. I myself also made contact on that freq. It is a very strong signal in CT, USA. And it has been heard in Germany also. Note that Gander DOES NOT broadcast on 2000, one must go upto 3485//6604//10051 etc. Only NY Aviation WX on 2000. GL Good numbers and happy listening.
Paul S. in CT (Y-Group DXLD and ULDX)
This is standard if the reporting network goes down. Basically all the reporting centers could not access the NY radio hub. I’ve heard this before on San Fran’s VOLMET broadcast a few months back.
I take that back, it was Gander Radio, and the messages for all reporting centers was , “No reports received”. I’m sure this is a glitch in the automated system.
I’m already envisioning a new episode of Twilight Zone. There just has to be a good creative use for this audio!
Hey, Dave,
You’re an audio guy, right!?! It’s all yours! Hi hi!
My buddy, David Goren–who seems to find all of this stuff–is a self-proclaimed “content DXer.” Listen to some of his audio mixes here:
https://soundcloud.com/shortwaveology
He’s a producer for Jazz At Lincoln center and has a long history in public radio.
Cheers,
Thomas