KVH V3... what have a done

[ronbo1]

Zanshin,

When are you going to update your great blog. You sort of disappeared in February. Are you back in the Carib?

Ronbo

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by greyhound37

Since we are now doing more offshore cruising and plan 2 races offshore sat phone and internet will be a nice addition. The internet will allow me to stay in touch and track weather. The V3 does all that but the 1000 watt inverter, 4D battery, antenna mast, lap top and customer supplied phone were surprises. The KVH V3 system best price I found was $13,700. delivered. By the time its in the boat with the necessary gear to run it I will no doubt have 20K in the complete system. Oh well the crew will be happy they can stay connected.

Just be sure to get a true sine wave inverter. Some electronics will not work on a modified sine wave.

[greyhound37]

Good advice delmarrey
http://www.xantrex.com/power-products/power-inverters/prosine-international.aspx

I have now turned the project over to the experts for the installation. Similar to taking your fish to a restaurant to be prepared. Not a good idea.

By the way love the Choate 40! Reminds me of my NY-36(ior design also) that I bought trashed for 17K, spent 140,000. on her and sold her for $22K 6 years later. We had a ball racing and cruising her.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by greyhound37

Good advice delmarrey
http://www.xantrex.com/power-products/power-inverters/prosine-international.aspx

I have now turned the project over to the experts for the installation. Similar to taking your fish to a restaurant to be prepared. Not a good idea.

By the way love the Choate 40! Reminds me of my NY-36(ior design also) that I bought trashed for 17K, spent 140,000. on her and sold her for $22K 6 years later. We had a ball racing and cruising her.

I just recently switched over from a 1000 Watt modified to a 2000 watt true sine. The bread maker wouldn't run on the modified.
The 1000 would just barely run a toaster or coffee maker so I upgraded in power as well.

As for the Choate, I've spent around $80K including the hull but the labor was all mine, with minor exceptions.
But I don't plan on selling, unless I win the lotto, which I never play anyway. It should last what's left of my life.

[Zanshin]

Originally Posted by ronbo1

Zanshin,

When are you going to update your great blog. You sort of disappeared in February. Are you back in the Carib?

Ronbo

I'll be back aboard in 3 weeks and will get the daily blog going again. I just started updating the rest of the website with details on the boat and general cleanup of the pages. Thanks for the kind words!!

To the thread - I've communicated with KVH and it seems that the system only runs on AC current, not on DC. I was surprised at the size of the 2 components and will have to figure out where to put them since I don't have a 19" rack system aboard, but it does look like a good system and $1 per Mb beats $10/Mb despite the high startup costs.

[dMAC]

I have been contemplating installing a V3 as well because my business depends a lot on having good email, looking at documents and presentations as well as solid phone connections. Unfortunately it is a price I have to take if I am to take any extended time away from the office.

I would mount it from a 8' pole at the stern. I have plenty of Ah on my house plus big inverter and generator as well. Some questions I have would include:

-does it work well when the boat is healed over?
-does it require much time to acquire satellites after booting up?
-just exactly how good is the voice quality on phone calls? Does it sound tinny or electronic like it does on hand held sat phones? Or does it sound as good as a regular phone connection?
- do the emails look like they would normally on your computer at the office or are they condensed or altered in appearance?

Any help is appreciated.

[GMN]

A quick note for additional thinking for those considering a KVH system: check the coverage map! miniVSAT Broadband Airtime Service

The last thing you want is to make a big crossing and realize that you're essentially in a dead zone from one side of the ocean to the other.

The other thing with KVH is that their bandwidth speed can be heavily influenced by contention on the satellite beam. If you're in an area with a lot of other users (say, a marina or a race) the nice high-speeds of the system will slow to a crawl.

Lastly, KVH operates on Ku-band which means that, unlike L-Band (Iridium Pilot and Inmarsat Fleetbroadband, for example) they are highly susceptible to rain-fade.

That being said, for the price (around $14,000) and the per-MB cost (around $0.99-$1.99 depending on your monthly commitment) a Mini-VSAT system is a great tool for offshore internet connectivity. You absolutely cannot get that low per-MB cost with any other provider until you start making a very high monthly data-commitment (usually running upwards of $1,000 a month for Iridium and Inmarsat).

[dMAC]

What about Inmarsat Fleet One instead of the KVH v3 system. It looks like the hardware costs are about $4 vs the $14k for the v3. A huge difference. What are the pros and cons between the two? ( I am not even sure if this is an apples and oranges situation or not). If they have similar performance ten why not go with the Fleet one?

[ksanders]

OK Guys, I have had a KVH V3 system on board my boat for three years now.

First off I love the ability to run my business from out of cellular range. Just last week I spent several days in a remote part of Alaska, and had internet and business quality telephone the entire time.

The system is not small. It consists of two rack mount units inside totaling about 6" of rack space. The antenna pod outside is also pretty large and heavy. I ended up bracing the radar arch on my boat due to it and my radars weight.

It is also a power hog. I havent turned off everything on my boat to test the consumption by itself but I can say that my boats average DC consumption is something above 35 amps, and generally less than 50 amps, but its a large boat and I have icemaker, two fridges, etc... So the boat is a power hog anyway.

Another thing... If you are going to be switching between generator power and iinverted power remember that most inverters will cause a "hit" when they switch over. This will cause the KVH to reboot and it will take 15 to 20 minutes to lock back on a satellite. I solved this by adding a rack mounted UPS to the system.

The whole setup has worked flawlessly. If you have the power budget, and if your need for internet and phone overcomes the approx 12K purchase price plus installation costs it's the way to go.

[ksanders]

Originally Posted by dMAC

I have been contemplating installing a V3 as well because my business depends a lot on having good email, looking at documents and presentations as well as solid phone connections. Unfortunately it is a price I have to take if I am to take any extended time away from the office.

I would mount it from a 8' pole at the stern. I have plenty of Ah on my house plus big inverter and generator as well. Some questions I have would include:

-does it work well when the boat is healed over?
-does it require much time to acquire satellites after booting up?
-just exactly how good is the voice quality on phone calls? Does it sound tinny or electronic like it does on hand held sat phones? Or does it sound as good as a regular phone connection?
- do the emails look like they would normally on your computer at the office or are they condensed or altered in appearance?

Any help is appreciated.

OK I do not have a sailboat but I've had my system operational in some bouy measured 10 footers with wind blown on top of that. It was most uncomfortable but the satcom worked great.

It takes about 15-20 minutes to boot and lock on.

The phone sounds like a regular phone. my customers don't know the difference between it and the regular office phones.

The email is not a service. You buy internet connectivity and use your own email service. I use my laptop to connect back to our exchange server at the office and run outlook just like normal.

[dMAC]

That's good information. Did you (could you) just turn it on say twice a day once in the AM and once in the PM to conduct business and leave it all turned off during most of the time?

Also was the reception sound like your land side phone or did it sound "electronic" like the handheld sat phones sound like?

[ksanders]

Originally Posted by dMAC

That's good information. Did you (could you) just turn it on say twice a day once in the AM and once in the PM to conduct business and leave it all turned off during most of the time?

Also was the reception sound like your land side phone or did it sound "electronic" like the handheld sat phones sound like?

You could just turn it on when you need it I suppose. We just leave it on 24X7X365. We use it without thinking about it on the boat all the time. Checking email, surfing the web, etc...

There is no electronic sound. It sounds just like a normal phone.

My business involves having constant accessibility during "business hours" I field calls from customers, check stock, run credit cards, and ship equipment. I might only receive 10 calls a day and write up three orders but I have to be available or I miss calls and my customers go elsewhere. The KVH has the reliability I need to accomplish that goal, relieving me from sitting at my desk waiting for the phone to ring.

What I have is a network that automatically switches between the KVH and the cellular system. If I'm in cellular range my data is on the cellular system. When I leave cellular range, or the cell system goes TU It automatically switches over to the KVH. I do not even know this is happening.

[GMN]

Originally Posted by dMAC

What about Inmarsat Fleet One instead of the KVH v3 system. It looks like the hardware costs are about $4 vs the $14k for the v3. A huge difference. What are the pros and cons between the two? ( I am not even sure if this is an apples and oranges situation or not). If they have similar performance ten why not go with the Fleet one?

Some of the main differences between the FleetOne and the KVH V3 are as follows:

Price:
Fleet One: $3,500 - $4,200 (AddValue and Cobham have different prices)
V3: Around $14,000

Data:
Fleet One: $4/MB in "home zone" and about $33/MB outside of home zone.
V3: $1-$2/MB

Speed:
Fleet One: Max of 100kbps (twice the speed of dial-up)
V3: Max of 2Mbps (about what you get on 3G)

Coverage:
KVH has good coverage in the Northern Hemisphere and very spotty coverage in the Southern Hemisphere.
Inmarsat has good coverage worldwide up to 70° north and south, but has a very clearly defined "home zone" for the Fleet One (where data is less expensive) that is mostly coastal.
KVH Coverage Map: http://www.kvh.com/~/media/Images/KV...les%200513.jpg
Fleet One Coverage Map:
http://www.inmarsat.com/wp-content/u...verage_map.jpg

Basically the Fleet One would provide (slow) internet connectivity and fairly low ongoing costs for less upfront money. The KVH V3 would provide much faster internet connectivity and very low ongoing costs for a much higher upfront cost.

Of course, none of these matters if you're not in the coverage zone for one or the other. If you're going further north/south than 70° the only option you have for broadband satellite is Iridium Pilot.

[dMAC]

Originally Posted by GMN

Some of the main differences between the FleetOne and the KVH V3 are as follows:

Price:
Fleet One: $3,500 - $4,200 (AddValue and Cobham have different prices)
V3: Around $14,000

Data:
Fleet One: $4/MB in "home zone" and about $33/MB outside of home zone.
V3: $1-$2/MB

Speed:
Fleet One: Max of 100kbps (twice the speed of dial-up)
V3: Max of 2Mbps (about what you get on 3G)

Coverage:
KVH has good coverage in the Northern Hemisphere and very spotty coverage in the Southern Hemisphere.
Inmarsat has good coverage worldwide up to 70° north and south, but has a very clearly defined "home zone" for the Fleet One (where data is less expensive) that is mostly coastal.
KVH Coverage Map: http://www.kvh.com/~/media/Images/KV...les%200513.jpg
Fleet One Coverage Map:
http://www.inmarsat.com/wp-content/u...verage_map.jpg

Basically the Fleet One would provide (slow) internet connectivity and fairly low ongoing costs for less upfront money. The KVH V3 would provide much faster internet connectivity and very low ongoing costs for a much higher upfront cost.

Of course, none of these matters if you're not in the coverage zone for one or the other. If you're going further north/south than 70° the only option you have for broadband satellite is Iridium Pilot.

Thanks GMN. A couple of follow up questions. How is the voice quality of phone calls of the Fleet One compare to that of the v3? How does the power consumption compare? Thx

[GMN]

Originally Posted by dMAC

Thanks GMN. A couple of follow up questions. How is the voice quality of phone calls of the Fleet One compare to that of the v3? How does the power consumption compare? Thx

The Fleet One runs off a dedicated circuit switch channel and will have unwavering voice quality every time you use it. That quality will come with a bit of latency, but generally will be very usable. You will be assigned an Inmarsat phone number which can be very difficult to call from a regular cell or landline phone (and quite expensive - generally in the range of $10-$15 a minute for the cellular user). Airtime for voice calls on the Fleet One will likely end up being more expensive than that for the V3.

The V3 uses VoIP technology so the quality should be good unless there's a lot of contention on the line. If that occurs (possible in a crowded marina or other areas with lots of satellite users in one place) there is a risk of burstiness when the quality of the line is slowed down. (Think of what Skype gets like when your internet slows down - warbling, drop-outs, and eventually could become unusable).

That being said, in most cases where contention on the line isn't an issue, the V3 will have pretty good voice quality, for cheaper prices than Inmarsat, and you will have the choice of being assigned a US-based phone number (makes it easy for family and friends back home to call you).

So published specs on the Sailor Fleet One put it at a max of 120 W @ 10-32 V and runs on 12-24V DC. What you really want, though is the average. I would recommend checking out this article (Grant was a customer of ours) of a cruiser who had both an Iridium Pilot and a Fleetbroadband 150 on board: Testing Sat phones | Cruising World (Note: the Fleet One is essentially a pared-down version of the FBB 150, and power consumption is about the same on both).

Published specs for the V3 put it at a max of 160 W @ 100-240 V AC. I'm not sure what the average is, although I would guess it's a bit higher than the Fleet One judging by the max draw.