Can I ditch my SSB radio for an Sat Phone type Iridium Go?

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

That is not true, the voice call quality is excellent. You must have a problem with your installation (external antenna?) or the device itself.

Is an external antenna essential?
We have an $18 USB GPS puck inside our wheelhouse and it has no issues obtaining satellites, i'd like to think a $1000 device would have no issues.

I am looking at getting an iridium go as we have no HF radio, so the IG is the far cheaper alternative, even if looking at second hand gear.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Is an external antenna essential?
We have an $18 USB GPS puck inside our wheelhouse and it has no issues obtaining satellites, i'd like to think a $1000 device would have no issues.

I am looking at getting an iridium go as we have no HF radio, so the IG is the far cheaper alternative, even if looking at second hand gear.

Yes on a boat the external antenna is a must have. They have a marine install kit. Friends thought they didn’t need it and couldn’t make reliable phone calls. I think every satphone needs external antenna on a boat to work right, even the Iridium handsets with big antennas.

GPS? The unit has GPS which works just fine with a little internal antenna. This is about the 2-way link for voice and data calls

[Simi 60]

Thanks for that.
Just noticed that it seems, the IG is setup for widows and iOS.
I can, as yet, find no reference to Linux.
Anyone know if Linux works with it?

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Thanks for that.
Just noticed that it seems, the IG is setup for widows and iOS.
I can, as yet, find no reference to Linux.
Anyone know if Linux works with it?

I only use their apps on iOS. The Iridium Go app is great. This is how you make a iPhone do satellite calls. The email & web app is not so good but it works enough for email and I can even read news headlines, check stock market etc.

The big app is the Offshore app from PredictWind. I like that best on my Mac but also use it on an iPad. Use it for GPS tracking, status updates while underway and of course weather routing, gribs etc.

I bought the hardware as complete kit from PredictWind with a good deal (think it was Black Friday or similar)

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Is an external antenna essential?

We have an $18 USB GPS puck inside our wheelhouse and it has no issues obtaining satellites, i'd like to think a $1000 device would have no issues.



I am looking at getting an iridium go as we have no HF radio, so the IG is the far cheaper alternative, even if looking at second hand gear.

We have an older Iridium phone (9505A) and it’s perfectly happy with its own antenna in the cabin. Although we have a cat with sloped windows and the phone needs to be positioned under a window for a good connection (fortunately that’s a convenient spot for its cradle). We connect it to a laptop and use UUPlus for email - painless. We sometimes text or call but don’t really feel the need to connect to people while on passage. Being cut off is part of the attraction of passages.

Regarding gribs and PredictWind, we download them via email from Saildocs, then import them into PW to view. OpenCPN has a reasonable grib viewer but the PW colouring is nicer. Rain along with pressure provides most of the front information that you could want.

Saildocs gribs are relatively small, while for some reason the PW gribs are huge. Anyone know why?

[puffcard]

Get an InReach, cheaper and super reliable. Weather, two-way texting, tracking and SOS transmission.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Surely many of those vessels would have been in vhf range of each other?

As an aside, I'm guessing at 5 days it was a pretty light wind trip?

A few boats would have been in VHF range, but not many. Boats left over a 3 or 4 day period. The passage was decent wind, just took the long route staying in Australian waters as long as possible to avoid all the reported nets.

[CassidyNZ]

Originally Posted by puffcard

Get an InReach, cheaper and super reliable. Weather, two-way texting, tracking and SOS transmission.

Just did a quick check. Cost of Iridium Go! advertised in the US is $788. Cost of InReach from US Garmin service provider $999. Both need an Iridium subscription to be of any value at sea. Clearly InReach is more costly by my research. What did you discover that I didn’t?

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by CassidyNZ

Just did a quick check. Cost of Iridium Go! advertised in the US is $788. Cost of InReach from US Garmin service provider $999. Both need an Iridium subscription to be of any value at sea. Clearly InReach is more costly by my research. What did you discover that I didn’t?

2 seconds has an in reach for $479 in Australia, so about $300 usd

https://www.ja-gps.com.au/Garmin/inr...EaAqdIEALw_wcB

Another 2 seconds has a go for $699 usd


https://www.predictwind.com/iridium-...4aAmcREALw_wcB

Imagine what I may find in 60 seconds. (-;

[nickolson]

Originally Posted by fxykty

We have an older Iridium phone (9505A) and it’s perfectly happy with its own antenna in the cabin. Although we have a cat with sloped windows and the phone needs to be positioned under a window for a good connection (fortunately that’s a convenient spot for its cradle). We connect it to a laptop and use UUPlus for email - painless. We sometimes text or call but don’t really feel the need to connect to people while on passage. Being cut off is part of the attraction of passages.

Regarding gribs and PredictWind, we download them via email from Saildocs, then import them into PW to view. OpenCPN has a reasonable grib viewer but the PW colouring is nicer. Rain along with pressure provides most of the front information that you could want.

Saildocs gribs are relatively small, while for some reason the PW gribs are huge. Anyone know why?

You can change the PW grib file sizes in a variety of ways from within the offshore app, it is very easy and you can make them much smaller than saildocs if you wish. Check out the PW help articles or contact PW support they will be more than happy to help you out.

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by zeseb

I have a SEA 222 model (VEry old) that inherited from my boat purchase. It's not even connected anymore...

I don't think many posters read this. It's one thing to advise to keep the system if it's working, your into it, and your going to be offshore a lot. Yours is broke which typically means you have to spend some boat bucks to fix.

When I bought Palarran it had a semi functional SSB in it but I didn't know how to use it. It was literally the first item I tore out as it was impossible for me to see how the investment of time and energy into learning how to use it would ever be worth it. Instead we bought a brand new epirb and sat phone.

If boat bucks are limited, which they usually are, fixing an old SSB would be so low on my list that - well, I think a quality toe nail clipper would be higher.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by nickolson

You can change the PW grib file sizes in a variety of ways from within the offshore app, it is very easy and you can make them much smaller than saildocs if you wish. Check out the PW help articles or contact PW support they will be more than happy to help you out.

Yes, but PW is pretty expensive and the Saildocs gribs don’t cost anything. So displaying Saildocs gribs in the free PW Offshore app is a good alternative option to displaying them in OpenCPN and no need to pay.

There are plenty of ways to decrease or increase the size of a grib file (size of the area and decreased density are the obvious ways to decrease size, and decreasing the number of parameters). Saildocs makes it obvious what you are requesting. We found that all of our downloads via email were less than 1 minute per connection.

[Palarran]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Yes on a boat the external antenna is a must have. They have a marine install kit.

Rather maybe it depends. I had a Go for 5 months sitting on the top shelf of my nav station, under a window, and didn't have a problem at all. This included an Atlantic crossing. Many other cruisers have posted on this with the same result - no antenna and it worked great. Some - not.

[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by puffcard

Get an InReach, cheaper and super reliable. Weather, two-way texting, tracking and SOS transmission.

We paid under $380 for an InReach Explorer + which can be used for hiking, or other off boat activities. Watch for deals on amazon.com or use camelcamelcamel to watch for you.

As you stated, two way texting, which is quite easy from the iOS app.

These are more limited, no email, no internet, no GRIBs. But the monthly plan is much cheaper. We pay under $15 usd per month for our limited usage.

Per Garmin, this is what we pay for:
Unlimited SOS
10 text messages/month
Unlimited Preset messages (predefined messages set up on the website)
Tracking points: $0.10 USD for each point
Overages are $0.50 USD for each text message over the 10 messages allowed in the monthly plan period.
Text messages include free-form sent messages and received messages.
Tracking points refer to the individual "breadcrumbs" sent by the inReach at user-selected intervals ranging from 10 minutes to 4 hours.

I'm not sure I would call this the best solution for those that make longer passages (more than 3 days). When we get to that point, we'll consider something better.

We don't have any plans to add an SSB anytime soon.

[El Pinguino]

This is well worth a read.... scroll down to day 308...
https://www.svnereida.com/blog