Sat Phone

[Sundowner 39]

Hi
I am about to buy a Iridium 9575 for a forth coming trip ..........do I really need an external antenna (400 plus vat) I ask as it is 50% + of the phone price which seems excessive .
Peoples observations about connectivity Canaries, Cape Verde's, Caribbean would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[jdc]

You do not really need the proper external antenna - which is about the size of a big mug of tea. Instead you can use the small (50 x 50 mm x 15mm?) patch antenna which is designed to go on a car roof. This connects to the iridium phone by a ~1m long thin coax ending in an SMA rather than the very stiff 'proper' cable.

I put this patch antenna pointing at the sky but inside a Lewmar hatch, attached to the hinge with an elastic band. It works fine for data links such as email.

 

[KellysEye]

The aerial on the Iridiun phone is sufficent provided you are on deck, the coverage is global

 

[capnsensible]

For Transatlantic deliveries, I rent one. Great for getting up to date weather text to me. Used in the cockpit, always worked, often below too.

 

[Sundowner 39]

Thanks for the feed back .......did anybody use there phone for forecast / Grib data downloads? ....and did it work most of the time ......

 

[Oscarpop]

All I would do is see what signal strength you get down below with the standard aerial.
We talked to Ed at mailasail about this. 5 bars is 100%, 4 bars is 50% 3 bars 25%.
We did the arc last year and you really need 5 bars to get mail and gribs without spending a lot on airtime.
We had a puck aerial though which costs a lot less.
Sticks to a galvanised washer I sikaflexed to the coach roof next to the hatch.
5 bars most of the time.
Works fine.

Another word to th wise. Please spend enough time before you set off understanding your system. We have seen many boats about to leave trying to get their PCs updated with drivers and alike. It is tricky and took us a while. As the sat phones don't like marinas with all the masts get some testing do at anchor,

Ours worked flawlessly for three weeks across the pond . We had it down to about 90secs airtime for both mail and gribs once a day.

 

[crisjones]

A good way to reduce airtime / data useage is to set up a new email address before you leave and then only give it to the people you really want to communicate with - that will drastically reduce your email traffic.

 

[sailorgirl]

We are in the Pacific. Been using a sat phone for downloading grins etc since we left the UK and it's been fine all the way. Using MailaSail as a compression/email service.