navtex no use

[c_roff]

I've heard an opinion that away from UK coastal waters navtex is no use for long distance blue water cruising and that only metfax is of any real use. Does anyone anyone have first hand experience to confirm or refute this?

whistler

 

[Guest]

Navtex is deliberately limited in range to about 300nm. This avoids the receivers picking up out-of-area broadcasts.

There are four stations in the UK, Northern Ireland, Cullercoats up in the Newcastle area, and Niton in the I of W area. Additionally there are transmitters on either "corner" of the bay of Biscay and also Oostend and one in the Netherlands.

If you are within 200 nm you should be okay, but the frequencies used are not ideal, the receivers are low tech, and I find the results rather disappointing - good for gale warnings but the weather forecasts are too infrequent.

My Navtex is the ICS Navtex 4, which has the excellent feature of printing out your log at pre-determined intervals. So what you might ask? Well, if things go ear shaped, and perhaps my log keeping was sloppy as a consequence, I have a printed log right up to the moment of system failure. That and the paper rolls last for ages.

If you plan to buy a unit, the ICS is superb, the Furuno has the best display, but whatever you do, make sure it is one of the new dual frequency units or has the dual frequency antenna (depends on the make as to which way that works). With dual frequency you also get the experimental inshore forecast, so I have read.

Hope that helps.

Humperdinck

Email: HJ@Seacracker.org
Website: www.seacracker.org

 

[incognito]

I have the Nav6+ and find the display great, and the repeater capability nice but not really neccy with all the other instruments, but I find that the reception, even with the supposedly excellent active antenna, in the marina is pretty hopeless. 518 broadcasts early in the am. just when I needed it, is often so garbled it doesnt show.

Also, the reception of Niton, which covers the NForeland down is great, but Cullercoats hardly gets picked up.

Weird, eh?

 

[Guest]

Navtex is used in a global context, but the stations' outputs are timed not to allow you to receive input from two sources at the same time.

For point of reference, I use a Nasa target pro plus, for X referencing, but you do not need any of these commercial sets to receive Navtex, if you have a PC with software to receive weatherfax, RTTY and SYNOP. Its all there and its FREE!

 

[milltech]

Only one unit, top of the range from ICS, will pick up both inshore and original navtex signals at the same time, on all the others you must switch.....and then wait for something to arrive.

Remember what we call "inshore" on 490 is for everyone else a local language version of the main 518 output, and not many countries are using it yet.



John

 

[Guest]

I didn't know that - Navtex want another £110 for the dual mode antenna, and I'm not ready to pay that, yet.

Humperdinck

Email: HJ@Seacracker.org
Website: www.seacracker.org