ShackDeck
Sign in
Download Free Now
What to listen to · Fax and digital signals
DWD weather fax on 3855 kHz: the night frequency from Pinneberg
The same German weather charts as on 7880 kHz, sent on 3855 kHz under the callsign DDH3. A low frequency that is short-range by day and covers all of Europe from the evening until morning.
What you hear
The same programme that goes out on 7880 kHz: the Hamburg marine weather office's surface analyses, pressure forecasts, upper-air and wave charts, at 120 lines per minute with IOC 576, each chart framed by a 300 Hz start tone and a 450 Hz stop tone. The content and the format are described in the main article; only the frequency and the hours differ.
Who transmits and why
Deutscher Wetterdienst from Pinneberg near Hamburg, callsign DDH3 on this frequency. Three frequencies carry one programme so that a ship can always find a usable one: 3855 kHz for the night, 7880 kHz for the whole day, 13882.5 kHz for the afternoon.
When and where to listen
3855 kHz sits just above the 80 metre amateur band and behaves like it. In daylight the signal is absorbed and heard only a few hundred kilometres from Pinneberg; after sunset it opens up and from the evening until the morning the charts are readable across Europe, on long winter nights even in the far south. Summer nights are short and noisier, with thunderstorm static spoiling lines. The receiver must be tuned 1.9 kHz below the nominal frequency: 3853.1 kHz in USB.
In ShackDeck
Station catalogue → Fax and digital signals → Fax DWD 3855 kHz (night). The program picks a public receiver that has the frequency, tunes it to 3853.1 kHz USB, sets the WEFAX mode and draws the chart line by line as it arrives; nothing of your own is needed. By day, open the 7880 or the 13882.5 kHz entry instead.