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: ''This article is about the image transmission mode. For the radio station, see Radiofax (radio station). Radiofax, also known as weatherfax (portmanteau word from the words "weather facsimile") and HF fax (due to its common use in the short waves), is an analogue mode for transmitting monochrome images. It was the predecessor to slow-scan television (SSTV). Prior to the advent of the commercial telephone line "fax" machine, it was known, more traditionally, by the term "radiofacsimile". The cover of the regular NOAA publication on frequencies and schedules states "Worldwide Marine Radiofacsimile Broadcast Schedules". Facsimile machines were used in the 1950s to transmit weather charts across the United States via land-lines first and then internationally via HF radio. Radio transmission of weather charts provides an enormous amount of flexibility to marine and aviation users for they now have the latest weather information and forecasts at their fingertips to use in the planning of voyages. Radiofax relies on facsimile technology where printed information is scanned line by line and encoded into an electrical signal which can then be transmitted via physical line or radio waves to remote locations. Since the amount of information transmitted per unit time is directly proportional to the bandwidth available, then the speed at which a weather chart can be transmitted will vary depending on the quality of the media used for transmission. Today radiofax data is available via FTP downloads from sites in the Internet such as the ones hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Radiofax transmissions are also broadcast by NOAA from multiple sites in the country at regular daily schedules. Radio weatherfax transmissions are particularly useful to shipping, where there are limited facilities for accessing the Internet. The term weatherfax was coined after the technology that allows the transmission and reception of weather charts (surface analysis, forecasts, and others) from a transmission site (usually the meteorological office) to a remote site (where the actual users are). == Transmission details == Radiofax is transmitted in single sideband which is a refinement of amplitude modulation. The signal shifts up or down a given amount to designate white or black pixels. A deviation less than that for a white or black pixel is taken to be a shade of grey. With correct tuning (1.9 kHz below the assigned frequency for USB, above for LSB), the signal shares some characteristics with SSTV, with black at 1500 Hz and peak white at 2300 Hz. Usually, 120 lines per minute (LPM) are sent (For monochrome fax, possible values are: 60, 90, 100, 120, 180, 240. For colour fax, LPM can be: 120, 240〔(Multimode image and data decoding software for soundcards )〕). A value known as the ''index of cooperation'' (IOC) must also be known to decode a radio fax transmission - this governs the image resolution, and derives from early radio fax machines which used drum readers, and is the product of the total line length and the number of lines per unit length (known sometimes as the ''factor of cooperation''), divided by π. Usually the IOC is 576. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「radiofax」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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