Pactor Modems - worth it?

Jonny_H

Jonny_H

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We're going to be live aboards from next July. We have an SSB (yet to be installed) for comms and weather fax. We have been offered a Pactor modem at half the new cost. Until now we hadn't considered them too heavily (we will use internet cafe's on shore for email).

We are desperate to have email on board - getting away from it all is part of the lure! Would anyone recommend we get a Pactor anyway - is it worth the cost? If so, which system to use? Sailmail?

Jonny
 
I guess it depends on your cruising plans - basically how long between access to land based internet access.

I have used Pactor with airmail on long passages and found it absolutely indispensable and very reliable for weather and contact with home. It is so slow that you will still feel you have got 'away from it all'! You must however train potential correspondents to understand how slow it is and to trim their messages to the bare minimum. Especially not to include previous messages when replying or forwarding. And use a 'white list' so you only accept email from a few selected sources.

Modems capable of Pactor 1 are available for almost nothing, pactor 1 is much slower (abut 1/10th (??) the speed of Pactor 3) and will not allow attachments, which excludes grib files, but you can still get 'spot' gribs and text weather.

There is little choice of system as far as I know - If you have a ham licence use winlink/airmail, otherwise sailmail.
 
We plan to use MeteoScan to get weatherfax without the modem.

We will try to get web access every couple of weeks (except of course on Ocean passages). The modem we're looking at is Pactor 3 (serial port not USB which is what I would choose if I were buying new). Is there a difference between the serial and USB (other than the plug on the end of the wire?)?

Also, I read on Sailmail that your limited to 90 mins per week on average - is this enough for sending a few emails to communicate with friends and family and enough to download regular GRIB files?

Jonny
 
I have not used sailmail, but with airmail you are limited to 30 mins/day. I found that more than enough as long as you don't waste time on a dodgy connection - try again later. Also that is 30min/day per PMBO. You will almost certainly be able to contact 2 or 3 different stations at different times. If sailmail is the same then that will give ample coverage.

I would strongly prefer serial to USB. A lot of people, including me, report problems with USB because it is very vulnerable to interference from the radio even in 'perfect' setups. For that reason do not use serial/USB to connect to a USB only laptop, use serial/PCMCIA. If you look at the SCS website, they tacitly acknowledge that the USB interface is problematic.
 
A resounding YES to the pactor and a subscription to Sailmail, $250 a year.
We have found it invaluable for keeping in touch, weather downloads etc.
The time limit on transmissions has never been a limiting factor for us and as we regularly send scripts and documents back and forth that says a lot! If you have a long message it can be broken in to segments and transmitted as separate messages, that works well.
 
A must have. We use it all the time. Invaluable for grib files (weather) and for contacting friends and relatives. In general it is easy and clean except in a marina. There are mechanisms for sending an email to multiple addresses that is personalised.
Even prefer it to bad WiFi in a marina for text emails.
Crossed the Indian Ocean and the receiving station was in Brunei, no problems
 
Just buy the thing if you don't you will regrett it. I use mine all the time and can tell you it would be a big mistake to pass up an offer like that. Get your money out and invest.........
 
If emails and gribs are important to you then it is a must-have. Don't forget that saildocs also serves back the text of any web page, so you can get a huge amount of info via the SSB using Sailmail (or Winlink if you are a ham), I use both.
 
Highly recommended. I wasn't entirely sure so bought a modem on ebay for around 200 quid and used it all the way to the Canaries.

The older standard was / is Pactor II (not sure you can still find Pactor I). The newer one, Pactor III is apparently around 10 times faster. The confusing fact is that all the modems are called a Pactor II something (ours was a IIe) but have the II or III protocol installed. Careful!

My modem was Pactor II and we could get about one 5-8k GRIB, 2 emails out and 2 in each day whilst on passage and just stay within our 90 minutes.

I have just sold the modem again on ebay for about what I paid, and bought a new IIusb with the III protocol. This will, I expect, allow us to get a lot more mail within the 90 minutes and prevent it becoming a problem at all, despite us being far too email-dependent!

The other benefit of the new one is that it has tuning control built in so we don't need the PC to do that with extra cables etc. With out ICOM 802, you also get 12v from the radio accessory plug so installing the modem is a doddle - 2 DIN cables to the radio and a USB to the laptop.

I don't think it affects you but others beware of Pactor IIe modems on ebay if you think you might upgrade to PIII because many do not have a serial number on them - this adds £150 to the £100 upgrade cost because they have to go back to Germany to be opened up and gain a serial number before the firmware upgrade.

Recommend Bob Smith at sailcom.co.uk for advice and supply, very helpful.

And I can't speak highly enough of the Sailmail/Airmail service and software, and the saildocs service. It just works, no hassle.
 
Oh - go on then - sold!!

Its a Pactor II with Pactor III software. Serial connection as opposed to USB - heard of USB interferance from a few sources. I will buy a serial to PCMCIA card thingy.

Just need to get the SSB installed and the Sailmail account subscribed to.

(Couple of hundred quid - well, that was only what I would have spent on beer whilst watching the rugby next weekend!!)

Jonny
 
Hi,

I have installed a few of these for customers and set them up with sailmail.

There are a variety of different options on model and leads required, so you would need to know what radio you have or are going to use to get the correct model/bits. Go for the latest versions with pactor 3 upgrade, as the compression is now so good.

Usage is easy and connections usually very fast. GRIB, Navtex and emails all very straightforward to use.
 
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The older standard was / is Pactor II (not sure you can still find Pactor I).

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Pactor 1 is still widely used and modems capable of pactor 1 are widely available very cheaply (eg the PK-232). It is much slower than 2 or 3, but more than adequate for basic weather and communications with home.
 
Is it possible to just recieve E mails, without a trasnceiver, just a receiver, such as the icom pcr1100?
The idea would be to recieve weather grib files, e mail etc. But no need to transmit stuff. Like "next time you can, E mail or call home".
 
No.

You need to establish a link to the transmitting station, even if it is doing most of the talking, it still needs to know you are listening and have got the message.
 
As WS says, no, but within Spain the Yoigo SIM card does give usable GPRS on the back of the Vodafone network. I have set up to connect using my Bluetooth phone but there are other solutions. A nice Bluetooth Nokia (like mine) is £79 on Ebay from a reputable trader 'BuyItNow' and a Bluetooth dongle for a laptop is €15 from PC City. Knowing what I know now (see the recent thread) you should be up and running in less than 20 mins. At €1.30 per day unlimited connect it has to be worth having when cruising in Spanish waters if only for times when you can't get WiFi.
 
Yes. It's GPRS so the service is 'always on' and you pay for the KB up to a limit of approx €1.30 per day for all you can get. No doubt there is a fair use policy but at least one forum member has been using it all year with no limits.
 
I have the pactor 2 USB with pactor 3 software running on a ICOM 718 and laptop with vista and have not experienced any interference. Going for a serial port version is probably OK but few laptops have a serial port now so you have to use a USB to serial port adapter which can lead to compatability problems especially with vista.

I went the amateur radio route. Getting the qualifications took a bit of time but I can now use winlink which is free.
 
I will PM you, I have a spare bluetooth phone. I will need all the info, as it costs me now €90 a month for wifi in the marina on movistar which is expensive, would rather go yoigi or whatever. But being a bit fick when it comes to all this stuff, need some help, well actually need a lot of help.
 
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Going for a serial port version is probably OK but few laptops have a serial port now so you have to use a USB to serial port adapter which can lead to compatability problems especially with vista.

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No. A serial-usb converter gives you the worst of all worlds. Use serial-PCMCIA, it is far more robust. The new USB modems are much more immune to RF interference than the older ones, but can still cause problems.
 
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