Navtex Engine

[argus]

I am thinking of buying a Nasa Navtex engine and using it with my lap top for weather forecasts whilst cruising along the North coast of France, does any one have any advice or experience of this combination?

Argus

 

[gfbalduc]

It's a matter of preference, obviously, but one of the good things of Navtex receivers (as opposed to Navtex engines) is that they work unattended, with a very low power consumption, and you get the info in real time even while you are busy doing something else.

Unless you keep your PC permanently on for other purposes (and can afford the power consumption), you would need to periodically switch on the PC and download all messages, which may have become old news by then.

The Nasa Navtex units are relatively low cost but work reasonably well; in my experience though, the Furuno units have much better receivers and are more strongly built, while the price difference is not huge.

 

[actionoptics]

We leave our Navtex engine on - drawing very lttle current - and attach it as necessary to the laptop. The program allows you to filter out all the unnecesssary messages so it takes very little time to read the relevant weather or safety notices. Only problem we had was getting the adapter from the serial port lead supplied to the USB port on the laptop otherwise we were more than pleased with it all through last year.

 

[SimonD]

I thought that the Nasa engine stored messages without the laptop connected ready for you to download. This is what you seem to be saying although it's at odds with the previous post. Could you confirm please?

 

[webcraft]

NASA engine does store messages without having the laptop connected. Negligible power drain, results easily filtred, very pleased with ours.

- Nick