Shannon VOLMET: August 5, 2021

Many thanks to SRAA contributor, Stewart Killeen, who shares the following recording and notes:

Notes: Shannon Volmet - SIGMET. A Shanwick Radio broadcast from the North Atlantic Communications Centre, providing meteorological information for aircraft in flight within the Shanwick area of international airspace (northeast part of the Atlantic).

Name: Stewart Killeen

Date of recording: 8/5/2021

Starting time: 0935UTC

Frequency: 5.501MHz

Reception location: Dublin, Ireland

Teceiver and antenna: Tecsun PL-660

Mode: AM

Bermuda...Missing?

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: