NAVTEX is a system of transmitting short text message to vessels at sea.
The transmitters have a range of between 200 and 400 Nm and their transitions are received by dedicated receivers onboard vessels. Most receivers display the messages on a screen which allows you to scroll through the messages.
There are many different NAVTEX networks around the world, in each one there are a number of different stations which are each assigned a letter of the alphabet.
A full list of NAVTEX stations can found on The Weather Window website [Weather Window…]. So that you only receive messages that are relevant to your position, you can set the receiver to disregard messages from any number of stations.
NAVTEX transmissions fall into the following categorizes of message (also assigned a letter):
| Letter | Information |
| A | Navigational warnings |
| B | Meteorological warnings |
| C | Ice reports |
| D | Search & rescue information, and pirate warnings |
| E | Meteorological forecasts |
| F | Pilot service messages |
| G | AIS messages |
| H | LORAN messages |
| I | Not used |
| J | SATNAV messages |
| K | Other electronic navaid messages |
| L | Navigational warnings – additional to A |
| Z | No message on hand |
To simplify the sorting of messages, a receiver can be set to disregard particular messages ie. if you do not have AIS you might choose not to receive messages relating the this.
Receivers should not be able to be set to disregard message types A, B, D and L.
NAVTEX receivers do not transmit and therefore do not need to be included in your radio license.
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