Ocean Navigator Communications Newsletter #23

Greetings from 27 North, 18 West

This week finds me back aboard the 47 ketch Aurora, crossing the Atlantic from El Hierro in the Canary Islands to Antigua. I decided to take advantage of the time to test out several communications systems.

Onboard, we have
- an Inmarsat Mini-M (Thrane & Thrane 3060)
- an Inmarsat C (Thrane & Thrane 3022)
- an Iridium portable telephone (Motorola 9505)
- a Globalstar telephone (Qualcomm GSP-1600)
- a Boaters Mini Web system
- single sideband radio (SEA 225)
- single sideband receiver (Icom PCR 1000)
- email software & service from UUPlus
- email software & service from MarineNet

Probably overkill for an average passage, but a great opportunity to test some gear.

While back on Grand Canary, I visited a few boats preparing for the Atlantic Rally Challenge to St. Lucia. The majority of these boats that were equipped with high seas communications devices seemed to focus on Mini-M and Iridium, with a healthy dose of Inmarsat C and single sideband as redundant systems.

Here onboard Aurora, everything seems to be working as planned. While in the Canaries, all systems seemed to work as promised. The voice quality on the Globalstar phone far surpassed that of the Iridium. With Globalstar, I experienced the same sound quality I typically do when making a landline call; however Iridium maintains its characteristic tinniness as if the voices on the other end were recorded on a bad tape recorder and then played back. The delay on both Globalstar and Iridium is negligible, but Inmarsat Mini-M has a significant delay - almost requiring callers to say "over" to indicate that they're done talking and will wait for a response.

The unfortunate circumstance about both Globalstar and Iridium phones is that the models I have aboard are portable models meant to be used outdoors (or above decks), and their signal strength is spotty when used below decks. Both systems are available with an external antenna, though I don't have these aboard.

The Inmarsat C had some trouble initially, but all was solved by replacing a defective antenna. We now get reliable, though brief, weather forecasts for the Eastern Atlantic as well as a number of safety and distress messages. Most noteworthy this week were a series of notices about the tanker Prestige being adrift, then broken in two, and then "sunked". By the time we read the news in the paper the next morning, we were correcting the reporters' map depictions of the tanker's location. Though the system can be used for regular email, we've been considering this strictly a distress and safety system.

The Iridium data system has been working well for transferring email, though the Direct Data software (a.k.a. Apollo Emulator) has been causing significant problems on my Windows XP laptop. When used with UUPlus's email gateway service, I'm able to transfer several messages in less than a minute of total connect time -- which is far better than via traditional dial-up methods or even a Direct Data connection to a standard email provider.

The Boater's Mini Web system was functioning very well back in the office, and I have yet to complete the setup here on the boat. What it was able to do back in Portland was impressive -- a paperback-sized black box (OK, silver box) plugs into a cigarette lighter socket, and to my laptop via a standard serial cable. It also has an antenna, much like an ordinary VHF antenna - in fact an optional antenna sharing device is available if you want to use your existing VHF antenna. It can be configured through a very friendly user interface to send automatic position reports (via an optionally attached GPS or via its own somewhat more rudimentary position calculations). Also available are the options to have my outgoing emails read by a synthesized computer voice to any given phone number, or to have an email sent via fax. A weather on demand service is available, though I haven't tested this yet.

Perhaps the best piece of advice I have based on this and prior experiences is that it pays to set up an email address that's used exclusively for boat use and leave your regular email address behind. In my case, my colleague Tim Hasson checks my regular emails and forwards on the important ones to my boat-only email address.

So - if you have something in particular you'd like us to test while out here on our floating communications test platform, feel free to send me an email (Tim will condense and forward these) and I'll do my best to accomodate.

Keep in touch.

- Dan Piltch
dpiltch@MarineComputer.com