Satellite phone recomendations

What are your recent experiences with satellite phone coverage and functioning on the US east coast and the Caribbean? Globalstar is less expensive and they have new satellite's wondering if their service has improved from prior years?

Thanks
Mac

Mac,

We have an Iridium 9555 with an external antenna. We have had good coverage throughout Florida and the Bahamas; Iridium claims worldwide coverage. Data quality (email & weather info) is excellent, but relatively slow by modern standards (9600 baud). Satellite voice quality is a bit limited intrinsically (delays) and an occasion call is dropped, but adequate for emergency and limited traffic. We are happy with out setup.

Sorry - I have no experience with Globalstar.

Tom Kopcik
Barefoot IP40-02
Pineland, Fl

Mac,

We rented an Inmarsat IsatPhone Pro (www.satellitephonesolutions.com/rental/s...al-isatphone-pro.htm) for our trip to Bermuda this past Spring. Was only able to make one phone call the entire trip due to poor signal. Otherwise.....we could send e-mail messages, no problem. I wouldn't use it again. We plan to have SSB for our next trip.

You might consider renting one before investing in it. The expense was very reasonable. It just didn't work out well for us as far as useability goes.

Tom Ward
IP420-35
La Vida Dulce

We have used GlobalStar for 7+ years - $49+/month with unlimited use. Our experience has gone from terrible to pretty good now. We use it for downloading Ocens Wx GFS GRIB files, works well and a daily call to both moms and then to others. Our moms don't ssb and only one does email. Here are the tricks/secrets to using it.
1. I ain't a cell phone, You start your conversation with "we are okay, how are you" and then talk about news of the day. It can drop at any second. Better than cell phone quality while connected, but it just goes away w/o warning.
2. You need to down load the schedule of coverage times for your area. This is easily done for a four day period with a kindle or via the sat phone to the PC. Typically there is 10 hrs of coverage in the Bahamas during useful hours - - 6:00 to 22;00.
3. Ocens Wx has the best compression algorithms - 40 secs for a 7 day grib file for your area of interest.
4. We bought it so we could take it in its Pelican case in the life raft.

We would do it again - if you are at a place where there is no cell coverage sometimes it is worth a a lot of $$ to know the wx or make an emergency call. The Tow Boat US 800 number is always there to relay a lat long to the coast guard, even if you can't raise someone on 2228 SSB.

So - we like it...with all its warts



George/ S/V Delicia.