Satellite phones

[sheephunter]

Well, I don't know what to say then. Is it something to do with a very specific location? For closing plans and flight following the communication is what is key. I would then expect everyone in the area having problems?

I also like to have mine when the "local" airport is 20 miles out of town and you're locked out of the airport and you need to get into town to the hotel.

Maybe we'll find something out here.

[just curious]

We use both handheld and internal mount irridiums for comms, as well as for an ADS-B tpye of fleet tracker and global comms source.

They work at both poles plus in the middle of the world quite well.

Globalstar sadly doesn't work for us, since we operate at 70 North, and 70 south, which is the abolute limit of them.

[bin landin]

We have used the Iridium in the Baffin Island area, northern Nunavut, and up on Devon Island. Never had a problem, not even once that I can remember. We had absolutely terrible experiences with globestar...ended up literally tossing them in the garbage.

I agree with the poster that suggested if you are having a problem with your iridium, you should probably have your phone checked...may be nothing more than a faulty antenna connection or something simple.

[Hiflyer2]

We operate two Irridium Sat Phones in our 2 Lears. They work great. We paid to LSTC external antennas outside on the fuselage. On occasion our coax wire has gotten broken at the connection and we have had to use the car antenna or the flip up antenna. Both have worked well in flight. So far it has never let us down. Occasionally it has dropped a call or had to be redialed but generally not an issue. We have used it successfully in the middle of the pacific, north atlantic, greenland iceland, europe, carribean, and well down into south america.
Top notch as far as I am concerned!!

[_dwj_]

For the application you have described. Consider the SPOT. Spot Satellite messenger...with the caveat of where you want it for.

One more caveat fwiw... SPOT is a subsidiary of Globalstar.

But apparently SPOT uses the simplex channel of the satellites, which is much more reliable than the duplex system used in the sat phones. I haven't used SPOT, but am thinking of buying one. Here is more info about it from COPA:

http://www.copanational.org/non-members ... nt_Jan.htm

I have yet to hear anything bad about it.

Dave

[1000 HP]

It depends where you are, and what time of day it is. I found Globalstar to be almostuseless in most places, especially east of Great Slave lake and north of Fort Smith for an almost unlimited distance. NE of Fort MacMurray it has about a 50 percent success rate. Oddly enough, I chatted with my girlfriend from Brown Lake, NU (a couple of hundred miles north of Baker Lake) on the phone and it worked like a landline My latest temporary boss bought an iridium last year and it was junk NNE of Buffalo Narrows, SK.

[sheephunter]

Maybe I should re-qualify myself. Mine are the old 9500 series and those are the ones I have that work and I haven't yet to find a spot that they didn't. Maybe just lucky, maybe the older ones work better. Not sure.

[180]

A sat phone saved my life. That and a ziplock bag.

They cost close to a grand...how much is your life worth?

But if you don't keep it on your person, well, there not as handy at the bottom of a lake.

[snoopy]

Of course, if you spend $1000 or more, on a Sat phone - you might want to consider something more durable than a ziploc bag to put it in...

[brownbear]

I mounted a iridium handheld in our plane. Put the aviation puck on the roof. Always gets a signal.

Globlalstar does have issues in Canada. Not worth buying one of those.

The flightcell adapter makes it easy to talk in flight over your headset.

If I was a pilot and my company would not buy them I would own for my safety.

FYI a new Iridium 9505a is over 1500 bucks. Comes with quite a bit of stuff though. Pucks, adapters..etc.

When I set up the plane it cost,
1800 for the phone
2200 for the certified antenna
600 for the flight cell adapter(after a failed attempt to get it to work with the audio system).
750 for an NAT audio panel adapter. (failed).

So yes costly. But who really wants to rely on HF and bad VHF signals?