Iridium V SSB? What about Inmarsat Mini M?

philmarks

philmarks

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OK, I was looking for Iridium, couldn't be a###d with time and expense to obtain LRC. Ended up buying a 2nd hand mini M transportable (not the marine version with stabilised aerial). All for £250. Ok call time $1.49 a minute and only 2400kbps data channel (9pin RS232 so will probably need serial to USB converter, laptop has XP Prof), but also has fax channel. Works fine (from car so far), have worked through the Saildocs site for gribs viewers etc; BUT, I'm stuck on one thing, help appreciated:

As far as I can work it out, I need to dial in to an ISP and retrieve emails with the GRIBS attached eg connecting via Outlook to a POP3 mailbox. I've also got some Venturi accelerator software which will hopefully speed up download, gribs only 7 or 8 Kb. Does anyone know of a suitable ISP. My regular home broadband ISP doesn't offer the low speeds I require!

At the end of the day I can get my Dad to send me weather faxes, but I'd rather sort out an independent routing, and have the email facility. Voice works great, crystal clear.

BTW also have Target HF3M which works OK-ish for weatherfax and Wetterdienst but quality is variable and for Tropics / Brazil I'm not expecting it to do the business. As other poster has said I have also have to turn off all the other electrical equipment aboard.

Thanks in advance for advice/help (hope I get some...)
 
If you don't mind paying for it (I think it was around US$20 ish per month), have a look at Ocens.com. I used their service to access email and weather via a Globalstar phone during a recent transat. Their software and customer service was excellent.

BTW - I have no connection with this company other than being a satisfied customer
 
On my last cruise I never met anyone who used satelite services to get weather (some had an emergency set to phone home with)

SSB is universal for all yachts venturing further than the channel. Free ssb e-mail services are available, and you can get weather (so I've been told) virtually anywhere. I know my hf3 m and a bit of wire was getting good pictures from here to Trinidad and back. You'll want an ssb transceiver once you find you cant keep in touch with all the people you meet without one. You also get the advantage of sharing weather info that comes from different countries routing services.

We used a translated Swedish service by listening into a Swedish net and they would translate it for us, knowing we were listening.

If you have the money I guess there may be some advantages, but I cant think of any offhand.
 
You could also consider the Globalstar satellite system. Cheaper than iridium provided you are remaining withing the satellite coverage - but no use in t he middle of the Atlantic.

As an alternative to Inmarsat, There is also the Nera World phone. If you have the funds and need fax, data and voice connectivity 24/7, these are the best options - personally I go boating to get away from the rat race.
 
FYI - Globalstar does work all the way across the N.Atlantic. Not quite the same if taking a Canaries/Caribbean route though.
 
Global star coverage:

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legendgstar.jpg


There appears to be a slight gap in the middle of the North Atlantic, especially over the westward route!
 
Talbot - As I said, I used it during a recent transat and it worked EVERY day. I was expecting a hole per the map but it didn't exist. Can't beat a bit of experience!
 
Thanks Talbot. I did look at them all and dismissed Globalstar on account of coverage, I'm possibly going from Brazil->Argentina and then S Africa. Was expecting to go Iridium, but the Thrane and Thrane unit came up (much the same as Nera WorldPhone), cost £250 on EBay plus £50 VAT. Tom Morgan used transportable ie manually aimed aerial on S Atlantic circuit, OK for him. As I said above, I have the Target HF3/M anyway. I dismissed SSB TX for reasons I gave above, plus all the hassle of finding a UK type approved set at a yachtsman's price - there wasn't one the last time I reviewed the extensive threads on here. Sailor do make one, but way out of my pocket.

I sail to get away too, but have opted to quit rat race now and make a living as I go. This gives me more options.

Thanks for advice.
 
Presume you are talking about transat eastwards, thus remaining in the yellow coerage, rather than transat west where you are mainly in the white.
 
White-ish! Looks like lilac to me lol. There are gaps heading down SSW from Cape Verde Isles and eastward from Argentina to S Africa (a big gap, or so it seems to me from the coverage map).
 
To answer your question, any old ISP will do. For example adial.co.uk which is a free ISP.

I can't recommend it though. I inherited a mini-M on my boat and arranged direct debit post-pay via satcomdistribution.com (v. helpful) with France Telecom. It's really horrible:
a) You start paying from the moment you connect, but it can take a few minutes to get through to a server after that.
b) Sometimes you don't get through, but you only find out after you have shelled out several dollars
c) Quite often the line drops - and this is with a dedicated antenna on a cat in a quiet anchorage.

I found it very frustrating and expensive. I only went this route because Sailmail was too restrictive for my business emails and the business was paying, but I still didn't like the $500 monthly bills just 'cos some idiot wanted to send me a powerpoint file.

I think we are still in the early stages of all this stuff.
* Mobiles are OK for email but you can't always get local ISPs and you can't always make data calls with prepaid local SIMS.
* WiFi is increasingly prevalent in marinas, but not everywhere.

I reckon the problem is that mini-M is really aimed at commercial users and though they started making inroads into private, that died with Iridium and Globalstar. So the technology remains slow and expensive.

Bottom line is SSB works everywhere (barring any local interference). For me Sailmail was effectively 5 times faster than my very expensive Mini-M. Friends with Iridium or Globalstar do get along better, and I have had good reports of Ocens. You may not like to installation costs of SSB, but Sailmail is only $250pa, period. So the total cost of ownership might look different when you do the maths.

Good luck
 
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