NASA Marine Instruments Navtex Navigation Equipment

Navtex is a world-wide system of navigation, Safety and Weather wrnings broadcast by individual nations under the general authority of the IMO (International Maritime Organisation). Broadcasts are required to have a minimum coverage of 400 nautical miles from the broadcast station, normally better than this can be expected.

Because of the better propagation of radio waves by night much longer distances of 1000 miles or more are not uncommon. No licence is required and the information is free to purchasers of suitable equipment. The information is in English, though some nations, Spain for example, follow the English text with local language text.

NASA Clipper instruments were launched in 1996 and quickly established themsleves as popular and reliable products.  Building on that success the Clipper Duet, GPS repeater and Navtex navigation equipment were introduced expanding the range to one of the most popular in Europe.

The PC Navtex Pro is a two channel navtex receiver designed

to operate on your personal computer. It will receive navtex

messages even without your PC connected. Navtex messages

are stored in a vast internal memory for you to download when

you get on board. Down loading is quick and the software provided allows you to select the messages you want.

Leave the unit on 24/7 then, when you get on board, just plug in your PC and immediately download the latest weather forecast

from your local station, or any other message stored in the PC

Navtex Pro's memory.

The Nasa Marine AIS radar is the first stand alone AIS receiver / plotter specifically designed for the leisure boat market.

The display, with ranges of 1,2,4,8,16 and 32 nautical miles shows AIS carrying vessels in a format normally associated with conventional radar. A trail of previous positions clearly chows the relative track of all the targets on the screen. A box to the right of the screen displays the speed over the ground, the vessel name, mmsi number and the latidude and longitude of any target selected by the user.

The compact unit has a white backlit LCD display, operates from 12 volts and consumes little power. The Nasa Marine AIS Radar is easy to use and will br available later this season at a RRP of £259.

The AIS Engine is supplied with a free copy of ‘SeaClear’ and Software on Board’ software, a data cable to connect to the 9 pin serial port of a PC and a 12 volt power cable.

The AIS Engine and a conventional marine antenna are all you need to start plotting vessels on your PC. The software runs in windows 95, 98, ME, Xp, 2000 and NT, it includes a world map on which vessels are plotted. Any vessel on the screen can be selected and its AIS data displayed.

This includes the vessels name, MMSI number, position, call sign and destination etc. Also included on the AIS Engine is an optional input for a GPS (RMC sentence). With this connected the users own vessel is shown on the chart with its latitude and longitude displayed in a window.

The unit can receive ships on either the A or B AIS channels. In default setting it alternates between the two channels.

The AIS engine can also be used with plotters or other PC software that have an AIS input facility. Check compatibility with your software supplier. An NMEA 0183HS input at 38,400 baud is required to accept the VDM AIS strings corresponding to ITU-1371.

If your PC does not have a spare 9 pin serial port a low cost serial to USB converter is available as an optional extra.