On Wed, 24 Nov 2010, Arthur Figgis wrote:

Don't people who actually need it (rather than just like listening to
it) get it via a kind of on-ship fax gadget these days?

I've needed it while on board a sailing boat with nothing more
sophisticated than GPS, VHF, and an FM radio (well, and three smartphones
- all out of range of their networks). Alone, wedged against the tiller,
hunched over the endpaper of a novel in the freezing dead of night armed
only with a pencil and the ability to recognise 'Sailing By'.

Somewhere i have a nautical almanac with a grid designed for recording the
forecast - rows for the sea areas in the order they're read, columns for
the measurements in the order they're read. I think it was plastic, so you
could write on it with a marker pen, then wipe it clean before the next
broadcast.

tom

--
You have now found yourself trapped in an incomprehensible maze.