Iridium phone etiquette

[All_at_Sea]

Any ideas? I keep sending a message but no answer. It could be very expensive to send an email back maybe or they are just not receiving the messages? Does anyone know the charges?
Boat in mid Atlantic heading for Azores, about half way now.

 

[duncan99210]

Kinda depends on what use the boat is making of the phone. If they're only turning it on to use it for data transmission, perhaps you messages aren't getting through to them.

 

[jdc]

Was it an email or an SMS (aka text)?

If the message was an SMS and sent properly then as soon as the phone is turned on and registers with the network it will beep to announce that here's an incoming text message. However Iridium phones are NOT in general compatible with mobile phones on the terrestrial networks; some work sometimes, frequently just one-way and others, eg Vodafone, don't work at all. So to send a message to an Iridium phone you should use the web interface (http://messaging.iridium.com/) _ I don't know if that's what you used.

You may note that it has a field for email reply address: that's because the Iridium phone user can't reply to SMS messages but has to compose you an email and send that. Your friend might or might not be able to send and receive emails. Emailing back is not that expensive, about £1.50 a minute but a short email to one person shouldn't take more than a few seconds of air-time to send. I get all my outgoing emails together and then synchronise the mail client once per day.

 

[SandgroperWA]

Some of the very old Iridium phones can receive but not send text messages. The phone also needs the correct message centre number in it to enable texting. (
not to be confused with the voice mail centre number) This can vary depending who supplied the SIM card and airtime. I supply sat phones in Australia and am aware of three different numbers used here. Cheers from down under.

 

[All_at_Sea]

Yes l have used the messaging.iridium interface as suggested above, perhaps they are getting the message but can't be arsed to respond.....sailors eh, too busy whale watching probably.

 

[Daydream believer]

Any ideas? I keep sending a message but no answer. It could be very expensive to send an email back maybe or they are just not receiving the messages? Does anyone know the charges?
Boat in mid Atlantic heading for Azores, about half way now.

Well you connected with this forum OK so you are transmitting OK
Why not PM someone on this forum ( in the same country as your friend) & ask them to telephone your friend & ask why no reply
Then they can post the reply back on the forum & you can see it

I cannot offer as I am leaving the uk to go sailing - sorry- but someone might agree for you if you ask nicely

 

[skyflyer]

Well you connected with this forum OK so you are transmitting OK
Why not PM someone on this forum ( in the same country as your friend) & ask them to telephone your friend & ask why no reply
Then they can post the reply back on the forum & you can see it

I cannot offer as I am leaving the uk to go sailing - sorry- but someone might agree for you if you ask nicely

errrr... haven't you got it the wrong way around? I read it that the OP is on dry land trying to contact a boat in mid atlantic?


To the OP: you haven't said but if you are 'dad' and the boat is being crewed by 'son', then if they are anything like my children they'll just read your message and ignore it You could always try something like "Your mother is about to clear out your old room and throw away all your stuff, is that OK?" - that will get a response!

 

[Daydream believer]

errrr... haven't you got it the wrong way around? I read it that the OP is on dry land trying to contact a boat in mid atlantic?


!

Please accept apologies --It never occurred to me -- severe case of egg on face- yet again