Keeping in touch.

[tgpt21]

Going through this forum I realise what a Luddite I am. I am going to be living aboard around Italy, France and Croatia and would have been satisfied with sending the odd text and visiting the local internet cafe. There are clearly other options: WiFi smartphones inter alia. Please educate me in the options available. I have a WiFi laptop I just do not know its potential.

 

[Silverado]

What you need is a Mobile Data Card which contains a 3G SIM card (bill or pay as you go). Slot that into your laptop and bingo your on the Net in France and Italy. I'm not sure about Croatia.

 

[HoratioHB]

You can get Wi Fi aerials which increase the range significantly allowing you to get on the net quite regularly and then use MSN messenger or Skype to talk for free.

I've got one of these. http://www.wirelesspro.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=488

Yoy can also get other types from Maplins

 

[chasroberts]

In addition lots of bars, cafes etc advertise free wifi access. Whenyou find one, take the laptop along and surf/email to your pleasure for the price of a coffee/wine/brandy etc.

 

[roly_voya]

Wifi & internet does seem to be taking over from mobiles or letters (old fasioned method where you wrote messages on paper and sent them to the port your friends have just left for friendly H/M to forward to another port they had also just left!)
wonderful thing progress. I use G3 phone as a modem which works fine but was a bit tricky to set up, e.g. I needed the healpline, seems to work everywhere including at 37000ft over Biscay!!!
The big plus for both email and mobile phones is you only need to know who someone is not where they are
The disadvantage is that this only applies where there is network coverage
What I wonder is whether in 5 years we will be doing the same anywhere by logging in on the satphone. 10 years ago mobiles where the size of a brick, cost £1/min and only worked in cities do you recon progess will be similar in satphones?
So where does that leave SSB? (apart from being ferociously expensive to fit!!) How many people have SSB fitted? do you find you use it or did you just fit it to do the ARC? Would an EPIRB and satphone, as carried on most ships be just as good or better?
For European waters I am wondering if SSB is now redundant but don't know if it is still used extensively in other areas

 

[tgpt21]

[ QUOTE ]
You can get Wi Fi aerials which increase the range significantly

Sorry to be so obtuse but....


you have one of these fitted to your boat and this allows you to receive a wi fi signal perhaps a few km away?

 

[snowleopard]

SSB

I fitted SSB for an Atlantic circuit. It was used daily form leaving Europe to the return landfall but hasn't been used in European waters except for the odd weather fax.

 

[Bajansailor]

These Blue Ocean Wireless folk at http://www.blueoceanwireless.com/ claim that fairly soon we will be able to use ordinary cell phones in mid atlantic to call home via satellites.
However they do not yet give any indication of the rates they will be charging........

 

[roly_voya]

Bejan - Thought this sounded to good to be true, it effectively sets up a local GSM network for the crew to use that then does a piggyback relay to the land based system through the ships existing sat network. Fine if you have a ship!!

 

[ccscott49]

Now that would be a cheap system!!!

 

[HoratioHB]

Flip _Flop

not quite sure what you mean about being obtuse but the aerial I quoted in my link increases range to up to 5Km depending on the conditions.

 

[Bajansailor]

I thought it sounded too good to be true as well, but I was too dense to cotton on re the piggy back aspect of the existing sat-com.
Oh well, so much for that idea!
Although it would appear to me that it should be very feasible (and easy) for a cell phone to talk to a satellite (line of sight) and then down to a station on the ground. I hope it does happen soon.