T&T: Any experiences good or bad with Navtex and Weather fax

[bob Austin]

I have owned three dedicated FAX machines (Alden, Ocean Fax and Furuno).  One
Navtex reciever printer, plus several P C computer programs for both FAX and
Navtex using the Ham radio reciever.

I have liked the dedicated 8" fax paper printer by Furuno by far better than
any other machine.  (currently the FAX 207).  The major advantage of that
machine is that you can set the station, schedule and forget it.  The fax
reciever would check all of the frequencies when the station began the
prologue broadcast, and automatically choose the best frequency for reception.
I do not believe that the current FAX 30 does that--you are set with one
frequency, although it does do the schedule and auto start/stop.  Also the FAX
30 only holds 12 carts in memory--I would store or print the charts as they
came in.  Often I wanted a number of various products and might be 15 in a
day, plus I like to keep previous days for comparison (that can be done on a
computer hard drive with the FAX 30).  The disadvantage of the paper fax--is
you have to use thermal printing paper.  I adapted cheaper Staples paper, and
rewound some of the spools to get to the small enough size for the machine.

The FAX 30 does give good weather fax, has a good reciever and can be used
with either the NavNet or a computer, so there are a lot of features.  There
is also the choice of a printed or paperless Navtex. dedicated units.

Also all of the fax (and a lot more) information is available on the
internet--so if you have satellite internet reception you can get the products
that way.  With weather fax, you will need to study some books and learn to be
your own forecaster, if you don't already have these capabilities.  see link
below.

The WSI (weather channel marine) Sirius and XM are somewhat different
products.  They are basically real near time (the delay is a problem for some
people)  weather radar display, storms, weather warnings, water temperature
etc  More end user type of material.. (If you get the $100 a month package,
you do get the forcast wave heights, the winds aloft and surface and 500 mb
pressure.   You don't get some of that on Weather fax.  The costs of the
satelite reciever is about the same as the FAX 30, but then there is the
monthly costs of Sirius starting at over $30.  If just depends on what you
want.  I would suggest that you review what is available in your area on the
WSI, Sirius/XM weather:
http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=FlexConten
t&cid=1139320916898

Then go to the internet at look at the fax products at:
http://weather.noaa.gov/fax/marine.shtml

Also don't forget that high seas radio broadcasts weather on SSB also--if you
cannot get VHF, you can get general area information at high seas radio:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/marine/hfvoice.htm

Good boating--and I have really enjoyed being my own weather man with weather
fax--it adds other challanges to the boating experience.

Bob Austin