NAVTEXT -Is it worth it?

sparkles

sparkles

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HI,
My husband and I are heading off to cruise the Dutch canals and Fresian Islands next month and are considering buying Navtext. Can anyone let us know if they have used it and is it as useful as it looks?
Are there other ways of getting weather and navigation info when out of LW radio reception?
I wondered if there is a text service to mobile phones that we could sign up for. I know we can get the forecast when in marinas, but a good deal of time we plan to be at anchor.
Would appreciate forum wisdom and experience on the subject please!
 
I've had it for three years and wouldn't be without it. We were six months on the Atlantic french coast and it was excellent for reliable weather information. No getting up and silly times to hear the R4 broadcast and the french local forecasts could be translated at leisure. We became very familiar with the french weather terminology and it proved a very useful resource. Yes, I'd recommend you go with it. But get the dual frequency model - it's a real pain to constantly have to switch between 518 and 490 to get the broad/local picture.

rob
 
Yes, it is worth it.

In Holland, the VHF weather forecasts are really good, in English every 4 hours and quite accurate in the local areas. You should be easily in range, too. The almanacs give the relevant channels - ch 22 is one I remember, but they are not announced on ch 16. However, navtex stores the information for you, and it's in writing, which is invaluable.

Enjoy the Fresian Islands - they are a lovely sailing area!
 
You could consider getting a basic HF receiver and connecting it to a computer. You can then receive navtex, but also the excellent German RTTY forecasts for that area as well as wefax.

This is a lot more hassle than a simple stand-alone navtex receiver, but more flexible and more information sources become available. More advice here if you want to go that route!
 
I believe the 518 KHz transmissions are in English wherever, whilst the 490 Khz transmissions are in the language of the originating country. We certainly have no problem picking up French forecasts (in English on 518 KHz) all the way down the Atlantic Coast of France. The Almanac will give details of who transmits what, when and in what language.
 
You can get LW radio 4 in the Baltic never mind Holland!

The forecasts in marinas on the continent in my opinion are better than UK as well.

Never had Navtex so don't know what I am missing, but never felt a need to have it either.
 
[ QUOTE ]
You could consider getting a basic HF receiver and connecting it to a computer. You can then receive navtex, but also the excellent German RTTY forecasts for that area as well as wefax.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you explain further how this works,what sort of connection from HF to PC and process involved

Thanks
 
My experience of Navtex is not so good, but it is widely used and relied upon. If you get one get it fitted well, and consider earthing the aerial braid.

What I can recommend is using a GPRS phone, to collect the inshore or shipping forecast off the internet.

There are several ways of doing this, I use a PDA to link into the phone and collect the met office info whenever convenient.

The latest phones G3 (I think) can surf the web and collect the same data, but I have yet to explore this avenue.

Advantage of phone (mobile) link is that you have email as a bonus (or curse) and can sus out local areas via the web.

Disadvantages are that you have to have a reasonably good signal (scillies not good) but Holland should be good. Also GPRS may well cost more than in the UK until next year that is.

Ref another recent posting, the German weatherman service is worth exploring, but alas I have no knowledge of it.

Good luck
 
Navtex

is IMHO, pretty limited for adequate weather info. You need to look at other sources such as the NASA Weatherman (uses the German Weather Centre RTTY broadcasts), GRIB files and local vhf channels.


It is an invaluable source of information on pilotage, SAR and other important info.

I'd strongly recommend fitting it for the latter, costs are, after all, negligible.
 
GPRS

is, unfortunately, only of value close to land and in well-served cellular coverage.

If you use a UK SIM and roam, you'll have an horrific bill.

France is best served for coastal weather forecasts, using a French SIM, they're not prohibitively expensive.
 
I would strongly recommend Navtex - get the dual freq version - but take care fitting the aerial, as this is usually the weak spot.

As for 3G, I use it a great deal, but it is only available in the UK if you have a UK mobile account, and is still slow and idiosyncratic to use. Think green-screen Amstrad word-processor in relation to a modern PC and you have a feel for the distance that 3G has still to go, and probably the rapid pace at which it will develop.

Roll on 3.5G. Meanwhile, go for Navtex. Cheap and effective.
 
Deutsche Wetterdienst forecasts

Far simpler to buy a NASA Weatherman, dedicated RTTY receiver. It's got bags of memory and a negligible power consumption, whereas the PC route is unreliable, expensive and frustrating.

Most useful are the medium range 5-day forecasts for forward planning - the only weakness is the size of the forecast areas - as they give node points you can interpolate fairly well.
 
the international Navtex

frequency, all over the world, is in English.

The local frequency is in the local language.

You can get LW broadcasts virtually anywhere, dependent upon your receiver and (more importantly) your antenna.

Trouble is that the forecast areas, the farther you get from home waters, becomes so large as to be almost meaningless.
 
[ QUOTE ]

As for 3G, I use it a great deal, but it is only available in the UK if you have a UK mobile account, and is still slow and idiosyncratic to use. Think green-screen Amstrad word-processor in relation to a modern PC and you have a feel for the distance that 3G has still to go, and probably the rapid pace at which it will develop.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm using an Italian WIND SIM roaming in the UK. It sits in an Option Globetrotter Fusion PCMCIA card and connects to the web via 3G giving a speed of 384Kbps. It feels almost as fast as broadband.

I pay 20 euros a month for 200GB, £0.07 per Mb, (If i was in Italy, i.e. not roaming, I would get 1Gb per month).

I know I keep harping on about this, but it's "the dogs" and took some finding.


I guess what i am trying to say is that 3G works fine if used with the right equipment.
 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You could consider getting a basic HF receiver and connecting it to a computer. You can then receive navtex, but also the excellent German RTTY forecasts for that area as well as wefax.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you explain further how this works,what sort of connection from HF to PC and process involved

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

You need a simple HF radio such as the NASA Target HF3. Cost around £200???
Plus a PC running one of several programmes. I use SeaTTY but there are others (eg JVComm).
The connection between is simply sound out from the radio to sound in on the PC. It takes a few minutes to setup. Then some time - maybe 1hr - playing to understand how to use it.

Someone said:

[ QUOTE ]
whereas the PC route is unreliable, expensive and frustrating.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don’t agree, I have used such systems for many years on various boats and love them. However, they are NOT the plug-and-play solutions that you get in a box with a navtex or weatherman.

Advanages vs stand-alone navtex receiver: – flexibility, lots of different sources and types of information in English. A nice receiver for general use such as BBC. I have always found much improved reception of navtex vs the NASA system, but that may be down the antenna systems. The German RTTY and wefax reception is perfect half the planet away from the transmitters. The software is pretty good at managing the data as it comes in and it’s actually much easier to find a given station or given transmission than on the 4-line Navtex LCD screen.

Disadvantages vs stand-alone navtex receiver: More complex, increased power consumption of running a PC, you need to leave the PC connected so you may well miss navtex unscheduled ‘alerts’.

Depends what you want.

As for the 'expensive' criticism, well it certainly need not be. The 1st one I ever set-up cost nothing at all as it was on a boat that already had an SSB radio and a laptop. Really excellent HF radios such as the Yaesu FRG100 are often on ebay for well under £100. Most long-distance boats already have at least one laptop onboard.
 
Most certainly - Yes.

It is not expensive to buy a set ... and setting up is very easy. The antenna does not have to be up the mast or whatever - the freq. is such that low mounted antenna on a rail is fine. In fact my antenna is in the cabin lodged up into the toe-rail.
I would strongly advise to get a dual freq. Navtex and also with a print-out .... Then you have a print that you can read at leisure. I made the mistake of buying the cheaper Nasa that the lines are joined up and not separated ... great cheap machine but takes patience to split up the info.

Main Navtex channels are by standard to be in English - so where people mention local language ??

Go for it ..... yes HF radio stuff is great as well - but needs setting up, a PC running at set times etc. The Navtex is very low power requirement and chugs away without any need for you to do anything ....

Mobile phone ? Yeh - great if you want huge bills and also stay close enough to shore to get service ....

Navtex serves the worlds shipping - that's good enough for me !!
 
To bring you up to date

Since the inception of dual frequency Navtex, the longer and more recent frequency is transmitted in the language of the transmitting country, French for Brest etc, Italian for Rome etc.
The original, international, frequency is in English, though sometimes of a very extraordinary kind.
Italy has only just started to include meteo information in their international transmission, but Metal Mickey (the synthesised voice transmission on vhf 68) is far superior, being updated every 6 hours and giving you the outlook for 72 hours in bothe Italian and English. For Italian waters it's far superior to any other source of information as the sea areas are smaller. With a high-gain antenna you can get it throughout the Med, though the other sea-areas are the same as most other met forecasts.

It is, IMHO, unseamanlike and risky to rely entirely on any one met forecast from whatever source. Far better to learn some simple basic meteorology, use as many sources of information as possible and, in the final analysis, your own instruments.

It is ironic that sailing vessels require depressions to get the winds they need, so you need to rush to the closest cyclonic depression, but not too close, lest you end up with a gravity storm.

One of the most depressing sights are the vast numbers of yotties you see motoring when there's adequate wind to take them (albeit more slowly) to where they want to go under sail. Equally obfuscated are those who waste delightful working F5-7 and stay anxiously moored up.

I've noticed a worrying tendency for met offices in the EU, to include anything over a F5 in their gale warnings as a strong wind warning. For me that's a welcome working wind advice.
Next step in Nanny state, keep the poor yachties in if they might frighten themselves, their wives or childer.
 
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