Which Navtex?

temptress said:
Where are you going to be sailing? I would say don't bother with a Navtex. In Europe you can get forecasts via 4g on your mobile phone... Further afield they do not have Navtex....
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Weather forecasts no problem but navigation warnings including range live firing times (particularly for us the Bay of Cadiz) are on navtex. Both ours have been printing navtex, a Locata on a previous boat and an ICS Nav4 on current one, which I much prefer to the lcd versions.
 
GrahamM376 said:
That's a matter of opinion, saves him having to go below to mark up charts. They can be set up to print out varying amounts of information, I've set ours to just print out weather, nav warnings and distress messages.
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Big benefit of getting navtex info on the boat nav computer is that it's simple to cut and paste lat and long straight into Opencpn. Just one right click cut and one paste and the abandoned fishing nets or whatever are a mark on the chart , works a treat and really is useful if that's how your nav set up.
And no paper to buy :cool:
 
Following the advice from various threads here, I bought and installed a new Furuno Navtex 300D over the winter. Excellent results ! Now receiving IRL, UK, FR, Norway, DK, NL and German reports. Boat is based in the south of Irl. I stuffed the antenna into the back of the cabinet. I have now wired in a NMEA feed from the GPS so the unit will limit its reports only to the local NavArea.
 
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jim5099 said:
Following the advice from various threads here, I bought and installed a new Furuno Navtex 300D over the winter. Excellent results ! Now receiving IRL, UK, FR, Norway, DK, NL and German reports. Boat is based in the south of Irl. I stuffed the antenna into the back of the cabinet. I have now wired in a NMEA feed from the GPS so the unit will limit its reports only to the local NavArea.
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You've been excellently advised. :encouragement:

Glad you're pleased with the result.
In over 15 years, the NX300 has never failed us.
 
Much good advice already but the best in my opinion is whether or not you need it.
We have the Nav6 and rarely turn it on. We have spent the last two seasons on the West Coast of Scotland and never had the need for it.
Heading South this year, I fully intend to use Three at home. I am hoping that flying back to UK for the odd weekend will deal with the 2/3 month rule. You can get a lot of return flights for the cost of a Nav6 !!!
 
dslittle said:
Much good advice already but the best in my opinion is whether or not you need it.
We have the Nav6 and rarely turn it on. We have spent the last two seasons on the West Coast of Scotland and never had the need for it.
Heading South this year, I fully intend to use Three at home. I am hoping that flying back to UK for the odd weekend will deal with the 2/3 month rule. You can get a lot of return flights for the cost of a Nav6 !!!
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But, as mentioned in post above, you don't get navigation warnings on internet weather forecasts and only the area ones on cg forecasts. I find my ICS Nav 6 (with mounting bracket!) very useful for picking up what is happening on the other side of the Channel.
 
jim5099 said:
Following the advice from various threads here, I bought and installed a new Furuno Navtex 300D over the winter. Excellent results ! Now receiving IRL, UK, FR, Norway, DK, NL and German reports. Boat is based in the south of Irl. I stuffed the antenna into the back of the cabinet. I have now wired in a NMEA feed from the GPS so the unit will limit its reports only to the local NavArea.
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I tried that with mine (NX-300) but I still ended up receiving to many messages so used the manual station selection which is fine for the south coast for me. The unit is easy to use, the only problem being that it receives only one frequency at a time.
 
dslittle said:
Much good advice already but the best in my opinion is whether or not you need it.
We have the Nav6 and rarely turn it on. We have spent the last two seasons on the West Coast of Scotland and never had the need for it.
Heading South this year, I fully intend to use Three at home. I am hoping that flying back to UK for the odd weekend will deal with the 2/3 month rule. You can get a lot of return flights for the cost of a Nav6 !!!
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Coastal sailing within range of 3G/4G and VHF, then I don't see any need for it but, it comes into its own when offshore and out of range for internet & VHF. If you have need to trigger your EPIRB, comforting to know anyone with NAVTEX switched on will receive the distress message broadcast from shore station.
 
Some comments, not having read all the posts:

I doubt there is much difference in ability to receive between the various sets. We have used the basic NASA and the Furuno 300D. I have compared reception with others nearby.


Reception is usually a function of location and time of day. With a signal track over the sea you will receive up to about 300 miles. When signals come over land range is often greatly reduced. In harbour with many sources of interference it can be zero. Curiously in Dartmouth (Kingswear, really) with a steep hill to the east we still receive Niton well.

A big high pressure area will increase range.

Don't be fooled by long distance reception at night. That will be due to sky wave propagation when you get distant stations you do not want over-writing nearby stations you do want. There is no answer to this problem.

Choice of set really comes down to whether you want a true dual frequency set, one that you switch manually between frequencies or are content just with 518 kHz. More expensive sets may last longer.

My page http://weather.mailasail.com/Franks-Weather/Navtex-Reception-Problems-And-Cures summarises what I have learnt about NAVTEX. There is a more detailed accompanying page.

For us, nowadays, it is really a back-up system. Previously it was sometimes our only source of weather information. It is still the most convenient way of getting NAV warnings. It is intended for use from the fairway buoy to about 200+ miles out. Anything else is a bonus.
 
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