Navtex......no messages

[Tim O]

I recently replaced a dud Navtex with a cheap one off ebay... a Nasa Target Navtex Pro Plus, with the second generation stubby aerial.

All seemed fine, powers up...have had it running for days now but no messages have come in...I have set all the channels and messages to receive......

Im sitting in Penarth Marina.........would have thought some messages would have come in by now, or am I missing something?

 

[pagoda]

Have you looked at the signal strength screen option?

 

[duncan99210]

I've often found that there a 'holes' in the navtex coverage such that you don't get any messages coming through. I spent a winter in Barcelona failing to get any messages, checked everything through to no effect. Finally went sailing and by the time I was a couple of miles offshore, there were the messages..... Back alongside and the message flow stopped.

 

[Tim O]

Have you looked at the signal strength screen option?

Yeah its showing activity.....peak in middle of the "graph".....lots of bars on the chart going up and down....not sure what its supposed to look like??

 

[Cantata]

Mine never showed anything when we were in our home berth, despite only flat marshland all around. Out at sea, worked very well.

 

[vas]

recently installed a locata navtex. Initially got nothing at all (unsurprising in a marina and the antenna almost 200nm away with a 1000m tall mountain next to me and in between)
Connected a thickish plain wire going to the upper helm and hardtop, two days later and after a heavy overcast night, messages came.
Then I altered the ending of the wire on the hardtop, nothing came over the next couple of weeks.
Bought a hopefully good antenna (plastic tube 1inch in dia and 50cm long) haven't installed it yet, hope it does the job.

cheers

V.

 

[earlybird]

In harbour, Navtex seems very susceptible to interference of one form or another. My Furuno showed nothing when I had the shore-power cable draped very near the aerial. If you have a mains battery-charger running, try turning it off.
Make sure that you have set international frequency, 512 kHz. Much more traffic than local frequency.
Temporarily raising the aerial might help, ordinary TV 75 ohm co-ax cable extension is OK AFAIK.

 

[Tim O]

Thanks all - it may just be there is no signal here....it is tucked in under Penarth Head.

The gentleman that sold it to me was exactly that, in all aspects of the sale, to the extent that he turned down offers much higher than mine because he had already agreed to sell to me, so I am positive that when he said it was working it was - it had a load of old messages most recently from November 2017 when he took it off his boat - i cleared all those off.

Perhaps I will have to wait till I get out to sea in the Spring!

 

[NPMR]

Just to add to all above ; Lots of places 'blank out' the Navtex messages.

One theory offered to me was that the frequency is particularly susceptible to interference from battery chargers on surrounding boats. Hence the problems in marinas.

Our often incurred 'blanks' always cleared once we moved.