NEW YORK RADIO VOLMET
1972 Recording
The word VOLMET is derived from the French words "vol" (flight) and "météo" (weather). The purpose of a VOLMET broadcast is to provide weather information to aircraft in flight. VOLMET reports are broadcast principally over high-frequency (HF) radio by a number of civil and military stations located around the world. This global network is divided into regions, with each region having a number of VOLMET broadcast stations which all broadcast on the same frequency(s). In some regions, such as Europe, there are also a number of stations that provide VOLMET broadcasts on very high frequency (VHF) radio.
In both cases, the station will use automated voice transmission to broadcast TAF, SIGMET and Meteorological Terminal Air Report (METAR) information for a published list of aerodromes. VHF stations normally broadcast their information in a continuous loop, updating the information as changes occur. HF VOLMET stations generally broadcast on a published schedule with five-minute intervals allocated to each station, thus preventing overlapping transmission on the same frequency. (SOURCE: Skybrary. )
Here is my video recording, audio from 1972:
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This is back when the VOLMET was done live, instead of the later automated version. Also notable is that the aviation weather sequence did not include the altimeter (barometer) reading. I wrote them in the 1970s asking why this was excluded, they responded that it would change too much to be useful to pilots. Yet, years later, they began include the altimeter, the last field of info in the "SA" observation format used at the time. (This later became METAR, to be consistent with international observations.) I also remember one time hearing the announcer (perhaps the one on this recording) saying "get me out of here, get me out of here." I was a regular listener to New York VOLMET, this was the only time I heard a deviation from the weather reports. I wondered if someone was harassing him while he was reading or if these phrases were due to his boredom at reading these aviation sequences hour after hour.
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