Maritime DX on the MF Band
This page is meant to provide a single source of references for DXing voice maritime communications between 1600 to 3000 kHz. If you know of additional sources, please send them along!
References Created By DXers
On Google Docs I keep a Spreadsheet Listing MF Marine Broadcasts by Time.
I have detailed schedules for Canada and Spain here.
This Google Drive Folder has lots of PDF and other files I have found from station websites.
The list of Marine Band Broadcasts at William Hepburn's site is great. However, some of the times he lists don't match what I have monitored and I think some of the stations are no longer active. The information probably comes from official sources and some countries may not be so good about keeping those up-to-date.
My recent MF Marine Logs made in Newfoundland and Pennsylvania in s spreadsheet on Google Drive.
The Coastal Radio Communications website by Robert Maskill has frequency lists and other station info, especially about stations in the British Isles. It does not include schedules.
The Play DX Blog Website. A couple of European DXers regularly report their loggings here. Do a search for maritime and then for marittime (with two T's - the Italian editor misspells it a lot). Their logs tend to be for the 1800-2330 UTC period, which isn't the best for North American listeners, but they do confirm that the stations are on and on schedule.
The Utility DXers Forum covers all types of utility DX. If you subscribe to the groups.io e-mail forum you will have access to their files there, which include loggings going back nearly twenty years.
The Long Beach Island DXpeditions in New Jersey logged some stations between 1600 to 1800 kHz. Check the LBI-17 2018 and LBI-18 2019 logs.
Google Books
There are numerous books for mariners that list marine information broadcasts. Most of these are too costly for the general hobbyist but much of the content can be found for free on Google Books. Several are listed below. In the Google search bar just type the name of the book, the name of the author and 'books.google.com'.
The Mediterranean Almanac 2021-22 by Lucinda Heikell has great coverage of that part of the world. Chapter four is filled with schedules for weather broadcasts. Chapter two and three contain a lot of station information including some email addresses, which may be useful for getting QSLs.
The Cruising Almanac 2021 by the Cruising Association. This covers Western Europe and includes most of the European stations not included in the previous volume.
Reeds Eastern Almanac 2020 by Perrin Towler and Mark Fishwick. This covers the area around the North Sea.
Handbook for Marine Radio Communication by G. D. Lees and W. G. Williamson. The sixth edition from 2015 is the most recent available online. Unfortunately the viewable pages do not include schedules. There is a more recent, and costly, print edition.
Miscellanous Sources
Radio Navigational Aids is a PDF published by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2014. The data is out-of-date and incomplete. However, it is a good source for transmitter site coordinates and it has email addresses for some stations. It also cover the entire world.
This outdated website has some interesting historical information on the UK and some other countries. Some of the links don't work.