For the last six years since I have been working steadily with my YouTube channel and blog, the presence of XMJ-225 Toronto Marine Weather radio on VHF162.4MHz has been a welcome occurrence. While studying various VHF broadcasts such as AIS and DSC, I used this station as a starting placeholder. For the first generation of RTL-SDRs, it also was instrumental in setting the ppm of the local oscillator as these units drifted quite a bit (typically about +/-27ppm). Last week I was checking AIS traffic from my home QTH and noticed the absence of the usual powerful signal on 162.400MHz (and also on 162.475MHz). I did a search and learned that Environment Canada had shut down this service of 185 stations (Ref.1/2). The good news is that an alternate American weather station can be received on 162.550MHz.
Marine Band Scan SDR#
Figure 1 shows a scan of the Marine band around 162.400MHz. Station XMJ-225 is no longer transmitting. However the good news is that there is a strong American Weather Station KEB98 in Buffalo transmitting on 162.550MHz.
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References
#1. – “Environment Canada Ending Weatheradio Forecast Service”,
https://torontosun.com/news/national/environment-canada-ending-weatherradio-forecast-service
#2. – “Environment Canada to Permanently Shut Down VHF Weatheradio Service”,
https://swling.com/blog/2026/02/breaking-news-environment-canada-to-permanently-shut-down-vhf-weatheradio-and-hello-weather-on-march-16-2026/
#3. – “RTL-SDR for Weather Radio”,
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/rtl-sdr-for-weather-radio/
#4. – “RTL-SDR for AIS & Marine Weather on SDRangel & OpenCPN”,
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/rtl-sdr-for-ais-marine-weather-on-sdrangel-opencpn/
#5. – “RTL-SDR for VHF Marine Scanner on SDR#”,
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/rtl-sdr-for-vhf-marine-scanner-on-sdr/
#6. – “RTL-SDR for Marine VHF Scanner on GNU Radio”,
https://jeremyclark.ca/wp/telecom/rtl-sdr-for-marine-vhf-scanner-on-gnu-radio/
