Downloading from a Furuno Navtex to a PC

[drawp]

The manual describes how to connect to a PC using a DSUB 9 pin connector. Then continues with the unhelpful instruction, "Set up the PC to receive data." Can anyone advise on how I do this. What format is the data in and what programme would I use to see the data. Thanks in advance to anyone you can help.

 

[earlybird]

Have you tried Hyperterminal, which comes with Windows? I've not used it for navtex, but it displays NMEA data via a serial port

 

[Martin_J]

Earlybird is right - Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> HyperTerminal
... basically any application that will display what is coming in through the serial port.
You then have to set the application to listen to the correct serial interface e.g. COM1 or COM2 or even something like COM12 if you are using a USB to Serial convertor. (Later laptops often don't have serial ports). Check out your control panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager and look under Ports (COM & LPT) to see what your PC ports have been assigned.
But HyperTerminal is not vey good at letting you scroll back, often giving corrupted characters.
TeraTerm is free and is downloadable from the internet.
Search google for TeraTerm - http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.html
Download the ttermp32.zip It is old but it is only 1 Mb and is so simple to setup and use.

If you see strange looking characters on the screen - then the speed is probably wrong - default is 9600 on most terminal applications. Try different speeds on the terminal software - it won't harm anything - it will just decode the characters in a different way... until you get the right speed.

 

[drawp]

Thanks for the prompt replies, guys. I'll try Hyper-Terminal and TeraTerm. The Furuno manual does at least say the baud rate is 4800bps. Cheers.

 

[smartcom]

Why not try PC Navtex? This is a dedicated NAVTEX viewer for the Furuno NX-300 and others. You can get a 30 day trial from www.smartcomsoftware.com, but don't buy just yet as we're about to bring out a major new release with an initial 50% off price offer - keep an eye out on www.pcnavtex.com