We get it in the
Bahamas from
Miami. There is a station in
San Juan PR. All broadcasts are in
English so no problem there. Range of
reception is supposed to be up to 400 miles, although I've never tested that.
Basically you just turn it on and leave it on. It automatically receives broadcasts (messages) and stores them in its memory. You go through the message list and pick out the ones you want to read.
I like it. Since you got it "for free" I would keep it and use it. If you
google "Furuno NX-300 manual" you could download it free. Most of the information in there should apply to your unit. Its definitely worth reading. Navtex is not just
weather data. But on your units menu you can turn on or off the kinds of data you want. We only use it for the NOAA
offshore weather forecasts.