Who still has NAVTEX on their boat?

[Lightwave395]

I have a NASA unit, has worked fine for the past 15 years and still does

 

[Never Grumble]

I had that problem with Nasa sets, they were OK in strong signal areas but soon gave up in weaker areas. During tests with all stations open to reception (before selling the Nasa) the Furuo was getting full messages from stations well outside the area while the Nasa was lucky to get one message from the local station.

I'd like to keep it as an option but do need to sort it out. Its a Nasa Pro Plus it is currently fitted to a whip type aerial. Probably need to get a new aerial but bit unsure what is needed.

 

[ithet]

I bought a navtex that needed a new aerial. By the time the aerial had arrived a battery on the board had leaked and destroyed the unit, So I now have an aerial in need of a unit, or I'm looking for someone who needs an aerial for theirs...

I have a spare NASA unit that needs a new aerial if you are interested.

 

[doug748]

Yes. Wouldn’t be without it, many places without VHF or 4g on the West of Scotland.

Yes, I find it very handy in places in France.

NASA, always worked fine.

 

[jac]

Fitted a Nasa unit it to our first boat about 20 odd years ago and thought it was useful. Didn't bother on the second one 10 years ago and never missed it - phone and coastguard announcements were fine. New to us boat has a working unit that we will keep and and use but not sure i would go out of the way to actually fit a replacement if it dies

 

[westernman]

Useless down here, being on the corner of 3 different forecast areas.
Windfinder and others are much more useful.

Only time where an area of sea was closed off due to military exercises, it was not reported on Navtex anyway.

It has since stopped working, and I can't be bothered to fix it.
So answered no.

 

[michael_w]

Sailing mainly in the southern North Sea I like getting other opinions on the weather, from the Dutch and Belgians plus the nav warnings are very useful.

 

[srm]

Navtex is part of the GMDSS service and, as has been noted above, covers area A2. This is the area outside of coastal VHF range to around 200 + miles offshore: the range of shorebased MF coast radio services.

The responses above that do not have a use for Navtex appear to be from coastal sailors who are not the intended users of the service anyway. For a boat that spends time sailing beyond around 25 miles off the coast and does not have sat coms Navtex can provide useful info.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Mine just sits there recording the weather forecast. As a repeater it is okay.
Predictwind on my mobile has replaced Navtex. It has become redundant but acts as a backup. VHF CG Weather-forecasts are superior, just listen in, same data.

 

[dunedin]

Navtex is part of the GMDSS service and, as has been noted above, covers area A2. This is the area outside of coastal VHF range to around 200 + miles offshore: the range of shorebased MF coast radio services.

The responses above that do not have a use for Navtex appear to be from coastal sailors who are not the intended users of the service anyway. For a boat that spends time sailing beyond around 25 miles off the coast and does not have sat coms Navtex can provide useful info.

But the vast majority of boat owners are indeed coastal sailors. And medium range weather forecasts are so much better most of us can get a good enough weather forecast for a 3 day / 400 mile passage.
And the number of people going properly blue water / trans Ocean without some sat comms setup is becoming vanishingly small.
Hence Navtex seems like the need it once filled has been filled in other better ways.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

or the northern Rona...

Lightweight.

 

[srm]

But the vast majority of boat owners are indeed coastal sailors. And medium range weather forecasts are so much better most of us can get a good enough weather forecast for a 3 day / 400 mile passage.
And the number of people going properly blue water / trans Ocean without some sat comms setup is becoming vanishingly small.
Hence Navtex seems like the need it once filled has been filled in other better ways.

The service is there as part of GMDSS and will probably continue for some time yet. You do not have to use it if you do not want to. Any move for change will come from commercial users, probably with an updating of the whole GMDSS system.

 

[Roberto]

But the vast majority of boat owners are indeed coastal sailors. And medium range weather forecasts are so much better most of us can get a good enough weather forecast for a 3 day / 400 mile passage.
And the number of people going properly blue water / trans Ocean without some sat comms setup is becoming vanishingly small.
Hence Navtex seems like the need it once filled has been filled in other better ways.

Coastal sailing has never been the primary target of Navtex, likewise leisure sailing wasn't probably the first target user of Navtex: I'd think small/medium size fishing boats which rather than make a straight crossing would spend days at those 2-300 mile distance from shelter and could take advantage of some heavy weather warning 36/48 hours in advance (4-5 days thanks to the UK Extended outlook). Bulletins content is mostly for safety at sea, it does not go into small details nor very far as forecasting horizon.
Can it be useful for a sailing boat crossing Ireland to Spain? yes; is it necessary? no, I'd say nothing is strictly necessary in sailing (apart from a boat). One can trust "forecast are good up to 3-4 days" and leave with nothing onboard after the last bulletin taken in port, or can go the full Monty with satellite connection and all the like; when outside of land coverage (be it vhf or mobile/wide band internet), there are several personal cocktails of weather information sources, Navtex is just one of the components.

 

[NormanS]

I like the Inshore Forecast, and some years ago, when the CG were playing silly b*****s and refusing to give out SAFETY information, I fitted Navtex. It has proved very useful. Instead of having to listen at particular times, it's recorded. If internet is available, I use some of the several available weather sources, but where we were anchored last night there is no phone signal, on any of the three available devices, and so no internet.

 

[Praxinoscope]

I do have Navtex on board, it came with the boat, can’t honestly say I have used it in the 5 years I have had the boat, but if I take it out it will leave a hole which ai will have to think about filling, so it stays.

 

[franksingleton]

MCA say that NAVTEX is the primary way for broadcasting MSI in sea area A2, supplemented by VHF in area A1. In practice, for most of us, it is a fall back. Most of us, most of the time, can get MSI online. For the cost, it should be a must have and should be switched on at all times. Power drain is minimal and you never know when you might want it. It can be the only reliable and easy way of getting Nav warnings.

Some comments.

1. Using NAVTEX software on a laptop is not a good idea unless you have the power to have it running all the time. The whole point about NAVTEX is that you should be able to see the info immediately, on demand.

2. Roberto mentioned getting info from stations far away at night as though that was a bonus. I am sure he did not mean that. Sky wave propagation is an insoluble problem with the system. Near Gibraltar, I want to receive Tarifa, not Cullercoats. The design is for reception to be by ground wave.

3. It follows from that, that aerials are best mounted low down as the sea is a good conductor of radio signals of these wavelengths.

4. Reception should be possible from the fairway buoy to 250 miles at least over the sea.

5. Signals are weakened by passage over land and are low power, 1kW by day and 1/3kW at night. So do not expect to get a signal in harbour. That is not what is intended.

Many forumites will be well aware of these points but I always find a few who are not. Apologies if I am teaching grannies.

 

[Roberto]

2. Roberto mentioned getting info from stations far away at night as though that was a bonus. I am sure he did not mean that. Sky wave propagation is an insoluble problem with the system. Near Gibraltar, I want to receive Tarifa, not Cullercoats.

Hello Frank!
Yes absolutely, far away stations are just a curiosity. Usually the various stations are lettered in order to have different letters in a rather big area, sometimes though another very distant station may have the same letter as one nearby so its messages are not filtered.
Example Q is Malin Head but occasionally I also receive Q/Split with its bulletins for the Adriatic, R is Monsanto Portugal but sometimes also appear R/Maddalena in Italy and R/Icelandic station etc.

 

[dune16]

What's NAVTEX? joking of course

 

[franksingleton]

Hello Frank!
Yes absolutely, far away stations are just a curiosity. Usually the various stations are lettered in order to have different letters in a rather big area, sometimes though another very distant station may have the same letter as one nearby so its messages are not filtered.
Example Q is Malin Head but occasionally I also receive Q/Split with its bulletins for the Adriatic, R is Monsanto Portugal but sometimes also appear R/Maddalena in Italy and R/Icelandic station etc.

To your list, I would add, Toulon and Valentia, Ireland. Just occasionally, you can get a big high pressure temperature inversion with abnormally strong ground wave propagation but from stations nowhere as far away as with sky waves. Transmission power is kept low to minimise the effect. Also stations next in the alphabetical sequence are usually distant from each other. That is difficult in the Med. One example is Toulon, W and Valencia, X. That did cause problems when Toulon‘s clock was slow and they were always overrunning Their allocated time slot.

It is sometimes said that if Inmarsat had come a little earlier we would not have this ultra slow, 1950s BT technology - although, it actually goes back to the 1930s. There is now so much invested by small commercial vessels in NAVTEX and such a lot in ground stations that IMO/WMO would have a major problem in introducing a better terrestrial system. In time, Satcoms will become much more affordable by the small boat industry. At some stage, the internet will become operationally robust. I will be sailing in the sky by then!

 

[LadyInBed]

I have a Nasa Marine BT3 Navtex receiver engine using the BlueNavtex2 bluetooth user interface App.
Bought and fitted about 2 years ago to use across Biscay.