Ocean Navigator Communications Newsletter #11

Staying in Touch

This week, Tim Hasson from Marine Computer Systems fills in for Dan Piltch...

Dan Piltch, who normally contributes this newsletter, is off to sea for a few weeks helping friends with a delivery from Spain to the Canary Islands. That leaves me to cover the fort, and in this issue I thought I'd introduce some of the means we're using to stay in touch, both for personal communications and to continue managing a business with no interruptions.

We're fortunate, in this case, to have an impressive array of communications resources at our hands. "Aurora", the boat Dan is on, is a 48-foot ketch well-fitted for international travel with Inmarsat mini-M and Sat-C, as well as marine SSB. Additionally, Dan took along a handheld Iridium satellite phone, and there's at least one GSM cell phone (registered in Scotland) onboard for communications during the coastal legs. There are data connections available for the mini-M terminal and the Iridium phone, giving the crew access to email and limited web browsing capabilities. Of course the Sat-C terminal has text email capabilities as well. Clearly, this boat is staffed by a group of people who are intent on keeping in touch!

The first thing we did was to redirect all of Dan's regular shoreside email to me. This let's me act as a "gatekeeper", answering routine questions and passing on to Dan only items which require his immediate attention. For the duration of the trip, Dan's using a separate email account known only to a handful of family members and colleagues. This minimizes the amount of junk mail in his inbox while using an expensive satellite connection for email.

The text-messaging capability of the Iridium phone has proved to be one of the most useful features. It works like this; if I need to get something to Dan instantly, I send an email to HisPhoneNumber@msg.iridium.com. This text (limited to about 120 characters) is displayed right on the Iridium handset with a warning beep to alert him to the incoming message. When we first tested this feature I forgot about the time difference between here and Spain - and Dan knocked a lamp from a table scurrying to silence the annoying beep at what was, for him, a most ungodly hour! In any case, Dan can likewise send a brief text message to my cell phone here in the States. This capability on both ends has proven extremely helpful for several urgent business communications over the past week, and cost-wise it's practically free.

Email, as you'd suspect, has also been very useful. Dan's primarily using the Iridium phone for this, while the boat's owner has sent out some longer, very entertaining voyage logs to friends and family using the mini-M.

We also plan to try some long-haul communications via SSB radio, and we have some other tests and trials in mind for the Iridium phone and Inmarsat terminals. But I don't want to steal all of Dan's thunder, especially when writing as a guest in his newsletter! So, stay tuned...

- Tim Hasson
thasson@MarineComputer.com