OK folks, I need your help in determining whether I am an idiot, or whether the Furuno BBWX3 is either faulty or a poorly-designed piece of equipment.
If you have read my previous posts, you know I never got things working satisfactorily while in port, though the equipment appears to be properly installed and working. I just completed a 3 day offshore passage. During the entire passage, the Sirius weather proved to be totally useless, giving me no information whatsoever.
1. The unit simply refused to download any significant information. On only a few occasions did I get any wind barbs (which would then disappear for some reason) and I never got anything on wave heights. My frequent visits to the Sirius weather diagnostic page in "Settings" showed very low numbers (single digits mostly) for the various categories. And then the downloads of information packets would stop. I rebooted both the TZT2 display and the entire network several times, but the outcome was the same. (I should add that there were 2 spontaneous reboots as well -- another irritation.)
2. I have never, repeat never, received the marine zone forecast. I can see the marine zones on the chart, and the description of the waters is there, but under "Bulletin" it always says no bulletin. I have tested this repeatedly in port and at sea.
3. I am now in Florida on a mooring, and the weather module is working -- at least with respect to the main components that I am interested in, wind and wave information. As noted in my previous post, there is no information for wave period.
My Theories:
1. Since the Sirius weather module more or less works in port when the TZT2 processor is not engaged in navigation and course computations, perhaps there is just not enough processor power available to handle the weather data at sea, when the entire system is working hard.
2. I have 2 TZT2 displays, one at the helm and one at the nav station. For reasons I do not understand, they do not share the weather data, but work independently. At sea, I'm using both displays (with a lot going on in electronics) but while testing in port, I generally have just the one display (the "master" at the nav station) running. Is it possible that the two displays are competing for the satellite data to the point where they overwhelm the BBWX3?
I hope someone can help. I have two 12 inch TZT2 displays and am operating with the latest update -- 5.03. When I updated the system, I followed the instructions and did a factory reset before and after the update, and then reloaded my saved settings.
There has to be an explanation for this, other than the Furuno BBWX3 may be a piece of crap. Help!
Jay
s/v Airborne
Mason 44