SENDING SHIP OBSERVATIONS VIA E-MAIL

NOTE: USE THIS PROCEDURE IN THE EVENT YOUR VESSEL INMARSAT COMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT MALFUNCTIONS.

1. Take an observation using the AMVER/SEAS 2000 software.
   • Place a diskette (1.44mb or 720 kb) in the A: drive of the computer.
   
   
2. After entering the observation data, select QUICKFORM.
   • At the top of the QUICKFORM, select TRANSMIT from the left hand screen and arrow down to SAVE ASCII.
   
   
3. The SAVE AS dialog box is brought up. At the SAVE IN dialog line, use the down arrow and change location to "Floppy Disk, (A:)".
   • Select SAVE on lower right hand side of the dialog box. (This clears the box and saves an Ascii text version of the observations to the diskette.)
   
   
4. Select CANCEL to close the "Quickform". It will ask you: "Do you want to cancel and lose all data". Select YES. (Note: The data is always archived on the hard drive, regardless.)
   
   
5. Using My Computer, open the A: drive. There should be a notepad file on the diskette called MET or MET.TXT. Open it by double clicking on the icon. The synoptic observation will appear like this:
   BBXX WCY6777 15124 99559 71459
   41496 82324 10075 20048
   40123 57031 76162 86827
   22262 00042 20302 32433 40806
   51003 6//// 80062 ICE /////
6. HIGHLIGHT the complete message. Using the right mouse button, select COPY.
   (Note: Close the notepad window and select "Yes" to save the changes to the observation.)
   
   
7. Open your e-mail account and start an e-mail message.
   • Using the right mouse button PASTE the observation inside the e-mail message. (Include the entire weather message including the letters BBXX at the start of the message)
   • You MUST include an equal sign (=) to the end of the observation. This is to allow the computers to know that the transmission has ended. Your final observation message should look like this:
   BBXX WCY6777 15124 99559 71459
   41496 82324 10075 20048
   40123 57031 76162 86827
   22262 00042 20302 32433 40806
   51003 6//// 80062 ICE /////=
   
   DO NOT SEND AS AN ATTACHMENT TO THE E-MAIL. THE OBSERVATION MUST BE SENT WITHIN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL.
   Additional information is available by calling (907) 487-4338.
8. SEND THE E-MAIL TO: shipobs@noaa.gov