Navtex reception West Coast of Scotland?

I can pick up Malin Head somewhat (60nm??) further North than my maximum range from Portpatrick. I'm not certain of this, but I think the furthest North was still only Tinker's hole on the southwest corner of Mull. The antenna is mounted on the pushpit, and I wish now that I had wired it up the mast to the lower crosstrees when I last had the mast down.

Then again, I don't know that I would have found the inshore forecasts from Malin Head much use in the Minch and northwest Scotland because the forecasts are limited to those for Irish coastal waters. Round Anglesey, on the other hand, I get loads of stuff about the Biscay and the coast of France, via transmissions from Niton, not to mention North Sea information from Cullercoats. What is it about the Portpatrick transmitter that renders it incapable of getting over the Mull of Kintyre? Why can't the MCA (or whoever is responsible) get it's act together and set up a decent transmitter at Stornaway?

Edit: to summarize, if you only sail off northwest Scotland, forget about Navtex.
 
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Freestyle said:
I can pick up Malin Head somewhat (60nm??) further North than my maximum range from Portpatrick. I'm not certain of this, but I think the furthest North was still only Tinker's hole on the southwest corner of Mull. The antenna is mounted on the pushpit, and I wish now that I had wired it up the mast to the lower crosstrees when I last had the mast down.

Then again, I don't know that I would have found the inshore forecasts from Malin Head much use in the Minch and northwest Scotland because the forecasts are limited to those for Irish coastal waters. Round Anglesey, on the other hand, I get loads of stuff about the Biscay and the coast of France, via transmissions from Niton, not to mention North Sea information from Cullercoats. What is it about the Portpatrick transmitter that renders it incapable of getting over the Mull of Kintyre? Why can't the MCA (or whoever is responsible) get it's act together and set up a decent transmitter at Stornaway?

Edit: to summarize, if you only sail off northwest Scotland, forget about Navtex.
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I have to say that is no longer true. For some reason, at the same time as Malin Head started their Navtex transmissions on 490kHz, earlier this year, Portpatrick sorted the gremlins in their system.

Portpatrick is now transmitting as it should, admittedly poor north of Ardnamurchan, BUT Malin Head transmissions can be received very well. As yet this year, I haven't been north of Ardnamurchan on the mainland, but I can say that Navtex is now excellent in the Outer Isles. I would expect that with Malin Head being further to the west, its Navtex should be good right up the mainland. I should point out that Malin Head is transmitting the Inshore Forecast right up to Cape Wrath.
 
NormanS said:
I have to say that is no longer true. For some reason, at the same time as Malin Head started their Navtex transmissions on 490kHz, earlier this year, Portpatrick sorted the gremlins in their system.

Portpatrick is now transmitting as it should, admittedly poor north of Ardnamurchan, BUT Malin Head transmissions can be received very well. As yet this year, I haven't been north of Ardnamurchan on the mainland, but I can say that Navtex is now excellent in the Outer Isles. I would expect that with Malin Head being further to the west, its Navtex should be good right up the mainland. I should point out that Malin Head is transmitting the Inshore Forecast right up to Cape Wrath.
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The problems with Portpatrick include bad signals and non existant connections to the system for receiving data for ttransmission which must have gone on for a yeqr or more. Things came to a head last here at the time we had a thread running here and monitored all navtex and realised Portpatrick was not snding on 490.... I believe some one here with a friend of a friend in high places had a somewhat less then discrete word ad then things moved quickly.

Although Portpatrick returned load and clear it seemed it now transmits the items to a different of original schedule. The new one is available on the web.

As I can receive Portpatrick in Edinburgh I would consider t reaches most parts of the west coast.
 
NormanS said:
I have to say that is no longer true. For some reason, at the same time as Malin Head started their Navtex transmissions on 490kHz, earlier this year, Portpatrick sorted the gremlins in their system.

Portpatrick is now transmitting as it should, admittedly poor north of Ardnamurchan, BUT Malin Head transmissions can be received very well. As yet this year, I haven't been north of Ardnamurchan on the mainland, but I can say that Navtex is now excellent in the Outer Isles. I would expect that with Malin Head being further to the west, its Navtex should be good right up the mainland. I should point out that Malin Head is transmitting the Inshore Forecast right up to Cape Wrath.
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I guess I have a problem with my the crowd of antennae on my pushpit arch, which has somewhat unkindly been compared to Jodrell Bank. In late May and early June this year, as in previous years, I had not a dickie bird via Navtex at Arisaig, Skye, Canna and Stornaway. I can't speak for Eriskay, because I don't think I even bothered to check if I was receiving there.

I'm delighted that Malin Head is now transmitting inshore forecasts for coastal waters as far North as Cape Wrath via Navtex. Memory plays cruel tricks on older brains. Perhaps my error is attributable to the fact that at about the same time as I got a sea area forecast from Malin Head, I was picking up Coastguard relays of coastal forecasts for Irish coastal waters on VHF.

With Freestyle's credibility at an all-time low, perhaps it's time to change my user name to that of yacht Freestyle's new name - Danny Jo.
 
Navtex

The 490 transmission from Malin Head (code "A" ) is received perfectly up the Sound of Sleat and includes the Inshore waters forecast for the "new" area "Minch."
 
To be honest we haven't switched our navtex since crossing from Cornwall to Ireland. Both Kirsty and I have iPhones, K on Vodafone, me on Orange and between the two of us we've usually managed to pick up a signal strong enough to get a forecast, and we've managed to pick up nav warnings sub facts etc from the VHF. I'll re program the navtex and see what I can pick up, up here in Gairloch for you.
 
snooks said:
To be honest we haven't switched our navtex since crossing from Cornwall to Ireland. Both Kirsty and I have iPhones, K on Vodafone, me on Orange and between the two of us we've usually managed to pick up a signal strong enough to get a forecast, and we've managed to pick up nav warnings sub facts etc from the VHF. I'll re program the navtex and see what I can pick up, up here in Gairloch for you.
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Ah, yes, but Navtex is free.:D
 
Snooks, you must be luckier in your choice of anchorages. I find in lots of places that I can only get a phone signal if I climb up a hill.

Modern Navtex don't use paper.:p
 
I pay 35 quid a month for my mobile, and get unlimited Internet into the deal. I'd have to pay that for a mobile phone with minutes and unlimited texts, so the Internet is "free" for me to use as I'd be paying for a mobile anyway.

Orange is patchy, vodafone is king up here
 
Just three observations on an old thread as it relates to northwest Scotland;
  1. Portpatrick still suffers from breaks in transmission, and Malin Head is generally more accessible and less broken;
  2. The west coast forecasts cover every UK area from Land's End to Cape Wrath, but the transmission time for such a large area is such that while Mull of Kintyre to Ardnamurchan, and The Minch, are generally covered, Ardnamurchan to Cape Wrath is very often missed off completely;
  3. The two inshore areas, The Minch, and MoK to CW, were separated more than 15 years ago, but the latter area, which arguably has more hazardous conditions, seems to drop off the end of the time limited transmissions.

Since early days of this thread, mobile coverage has improved when sailing in these inshore waters, with the exception of some sheltered anchored anchorages.
 
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Although I have an old Foruno Navtex on board I seldom turn it on. When I do there are usually dropped or corrupted characters making the already abbreviated messages difficult to interpret. I find the Boatie app on my phone more useful. Shipping forecast, Inshore waters forecast, Synoptic charts and much more, all on one app.
 
Porthandbuoy said:
Although I have an old Foruno Navtex on board I seldom turn it on. When I do there are usually dropped or corrupted characters making the already abbreviated messages difficult to interpret. I find the Boatie app on my phone more useful. Shipping forecast, Inshore waters forecast, Synoptic charts and much more, all on one app.
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Yes, in reality there is no longer any need for Navtest on the W coast of Scotland as module data signals have improved.
Key thing is often to check forecast last thing before going into an anchorage surro7nded by rock cliffs - as generally better signal at sea.
Have even managed to get the weather forecast via mobile data on St Kilda - though that was at the top of the hill.
 
I must be unique in that I fitted a new one (Nasa with bluetooth) 2 years ago. It tells me what the other forecasts say but will do it when there's no mobile signal or VHF is barely audible. Used it several times in the past month in W Scotland when other methods didn't work.

Its useful to know what you are coming out into when you've been in a no signal spot for a day or two.

I like backups for backups!
 
We have Starlink for that, no areas without signal and it lets us access other info too.

Interestingly they just introduced “pause with data” for a fiver a month which gives you unlimited low bandwidth data.
 
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