Daria,

For the first time in more than a decade we tried to use our SSB this summer as we were cruising part of the time with Alchemy. Sadly it didn't work so I'm going to have to ask for help on fixing it. Please drop me a line if there are any Icom experts out there!

We had a huge amount of use out of our IridiumGo this summer and made full use of the unlimited data package. It was a tough year for ice so we were regularly receiving satellite images, ice charts and lots of PredictWind data. We also used it extensively for updating the blog.

We did, however, have some issues.

The Iridium Web and Mail app worked fine last year but an iOS upgrade had rendered it useless for bringing in attachments this year. On iPhone and iPAD we had no problem downloading attachments but the app stubbornly refused to display them. When we did find internet access in Greenland we discovered this has been a known problem for some time which has still to be resolved but Iridium. Very annoying. I posted them some feedback on the Appstore!

So all of our image attachments had to come in via One Mail which isn't ideal. One Mail doesn't cache the download so if the signal falls off during the download then you have to start from scratch again. Next year we are going to experiment with different software and just bite the bullet on the subscription.

One Mail remains a great way of staying in touch with terrestrial email. I set up my regular email to forward to a GMAIL account and then can choose which emails I want to download from One Mail. All very slick.

PredictWind's Offshore App was absolutely brilliant when run on a MACBOOK PRO. We were really impressed by it's accuracy and it helped us avoid a lot of weather and headwinds.

Interesting that you report a trend towards relying on SPOT, Delorme and Yellow Brick. We took a Delorme (now Garmin) with us to use as a communicator when ashore and away from the ship's Iridium. It's a great device and fine for SMS type communication and position reporting but hopeless for GRIBS and email. It has a built in weather forecasting module using OCENS but that's not the same as being able to bring in GRIBS. Having text based weather reports being sent from a shore based weather advisor could overcome some of this limitation.

Personally though I am now addicted to being able to source a wide range of weather and other information and to import it to the boat for us to make our own decisions rather than relying on shore advice. So, for now, IridiumGo is perfect for us. However if our SSB can be resurrected then we will be using that for all of the added value stuff when we get into waters where nets exist.

Simon

Simon,

Somewhere I recently read that the majority of boats now crossing oceans are doing so without SSB or SAT phones, using only Spot or Iridium Go for brief communications. In this world of twitter, that's considered staying in touch. Sadly, the SSB conundrum is being compounded by the US government which has forced discontinuation of sales of some of the reasonably priced SSBs on a technicality. We, as well as many SSCA members, provided input to the USCG and FCC about this issue. My feeling is that having access to wider communications improves the safety of our ocean cruising community.

Frankly, I am waiting for the convergence of SAT and mobile. I hope it happens in my lifetime. Until then, I love my ICOM SSB. Simon, please let us know how it goes with the Iridium GO.

Daria

Vice Commodore, OCC 

Neil McCubbin

There is a long thread on the forum about the Iridium GO, which seems to have been dormant for a year now. There is only one reply on my topic "iridium 2016" (Which was useful)
We are looking into buying a GO soon, so would appreciate recent opinions, probably best on the OCC site, but email to Neil@McCubbin.ca also appreciated. One specific question. Is the separate antenna worth the losses in its long cable and the major (for our boat) hassle of installing it,


Max Shaw
We installed a Go a few months ago in preparation for NZ to Fiji and then in a few months heading up to the Marshalls. It is a huge step up from the SSB/Pactor which we have kept as a backup. To answer your question, the antenna and that nasty cable are a good idea. The data rate is very dependent on signal. Having used an Iridum handheld with only the provided little antenna or just the handheld I can attest that you will be driven nuts without the proper antenna. I hope to write a blog post on the Go at some point but rather behind on blogging at the moment. Cheers, Max SV Fluenta

Peter Mills
External aerial essential but remember to get a GPS position the on set aerial has to be able to see the sky as the receiver is in here!

Emerald Sea Aroundoceans
Neil we have been using the GO for over a year now, two ocean crossings. It does everything it claims quite well but the internet access is s l o w. The external antenna does improve and maintain connectivity - we installed this some 3 months later and saw the benefits. We have a combined plan with PredictWind/Atlantic Radio.

Simon Currin
I agree about the external aerial for data. Although the common wisdom says that the internal gps aerial needs to see the sky we find it works fine below decks in our GRP saloon. Another plus is the GEOS search and rescue cover that comes with it.


Alan Leslie
We too are interested in the GO ...when you say the internet access is s l o w, how slow is it, do you have some numbers?..Like downloading a predict wind grib file...how long?...but with the $125/mth unlimited data plan, does it matter?..I don 't know...

Max Shaw
Slow compared to land based internet but faster and more consistent than the SSB/Pactor. GRIBS and text based emails on Sailmail work fine. We don 't bother with trying to download web pages. Being able to download bigger and/or more detailed GRIBS is very nice.

Emerald Sea
Aroundoceans Alan, downloading a PW compressed Wx file is via GO mail and is typically 1-4min; it will consist of 2-4 separate emails pending what wx criteria you selected. We 've waited anywhere from 15-45 minutes to get a bbc news page to show up on the Opera (bro...See more

Emerald Sea Aroundoceans
Neil, if I recall correctly, Iridium 's specified and longest available antenna coax (LMR400) is 10m. When you place an order you can select a cable length but 10m is the longest and its terminated. I doubt you will see any significant losses if you remain with this. I have a 10m run in our boat and, as mentioned above, we have improved connection time with the ext antenna.

David Heath
The cable need not be long as the antenna is designed to sit on the pushpit. There is no necessity to put it on top of the mast. The cable is very stiff. Maximum connection speed is 2k.

Please PM if you do not get it. Many thanks. I found a good deal on LMR400 near Washington, DC. They also make a kind that is flooded with silicone grease, but it is not reliable to solder, and you must use crimp connectors, which can be good quality or not so good, so do your homework.

Also, many people do not understand how to waterproof the joint at the antenna. So far, my favorite is 3M™ #23 self amalgamating tape and then paint it with 3M™ Scotchkote™ Electrical Coating FD.

It dries so fast that it needs to be not windy.

The 3M™ Scotchkote™ will waterproof it without the tape, but you will never be able to get it apart. If you use the tape, which, if used correctly is totally waterproof except where it begins and ends, then you just split the tape wrapping with a razor knife and it comes off clean. The tape only sticks to itself and there is actually welds itself into one mass.

"Coax-seal" is also good, but the above method works on underwater cables.

Maria Del Pilar Geiger-Estrada
I have been using Iridium Go for almost 2 years. It 's great! You can download your grib files from Weather4D and do your routing with predict wind. We have an external antenna on the boat and it works all the time! We use it in the Mediterranean and also when crossing the Atlantic, in USA and Caribbean islands. In Cuba was a great help! Also for weather, chat and Mail it 's perfect!

Mike Reynolds We used an Iridium GO! while cruising from Australia to the UK over the last year. It just works. We even transferred 1MB photos on a handful of occasions - very slow but it worked! The external antenna is definitely worthwhile but note it is only for the Iridium signal. The GPS antenna is in the unit itself so care must be taken in siting the unit.

Simon Currin
Another significant advantage is the ability to access GMAIL via the excellent One Mail App allowing narrowband access to home email and choosing what you want to compress & download.

POST by email from David Tyler
Hi Simon,

I 'm on passage from Tofino to Hilo, now, and can 't get onto the OCC forum. Please could you mention for me that PredictWind support advised me that upgrading the GO firmware to version 1.4.1 would possibly solve my problem with the Mail app crashing when some (but not all) emails were being forwarded from my Gmail account. I did this before leaving, and touch wood, the problem has gone away. It 's worthwhile for anyone who has a GO to check that they have the latest firmware installed. My GO was an early model, and Iridium have only just got around to making this upgrade publicly available, though in fact it 's been available behind the scenes in beta since January!

Written while romping along at 6 knots in the right direction in good weather, so all 's well here.

Thanks,
David.

Hi Hasbun,

This is really great information for other people to see. Especially the comparative speed information.

Something that might interest you is the free ShadowMail service that comes with a SailMail subscription. Setup shore accounts for SailMail to monitor using the options in AirMail - the on-board software for SailMail. ShadowMail will check these accounts at the desired frequency and send a summary list of headers to choose to be Downloaded to the boat, Ignored to check when ashore, or Deleted. When you send emails from on-board, you can give the message the from identity of a shore email account, so replies go to that shore email account monitored by ShadowMail, not your important SailMail email address. Great for protecting your SailMail address from SPAM and enthusiastic marketing people at your sailmaker etc.

We crossed the Atlantic with modest expectations regarding Iridium and our hardware/software package was as follows:

1. Iridium GO!
2. SSB Icom 710
3. Pactor 4 modem
4. Sailmail account accessible via Parallels on OS X
5. Unlimited GO! package provided by Global Telesat Communications for a monthly fee of $132.50, including "free" activation of SIM and several unactivated SIM cards. This way we can activate service for as little as 30 days or keep it for as long as needed.
6. PredictWind Professional service, signed up for 3 months
7. PredictWind Offshore on OS X
9. Weather4D on iOS, used mostly as a GRIB animator/viewer
10. The "free" iOS Iridium apps

The GO! enabled us to:

a. Download unlimited routings from PredictWind quickly via Sailmail or not as quickly directly from PredictWInd Offshore.

b. Download unlimited GRIB files from PredictWind and from Saildocs (limited to compressed 40K file size by Sailmail)

c. Extremely quick, reliable, unlimited Sailmail e-mail that we used for priority/vital communications

d. Throwaway free Iridium e-mail addresses, about 3 times slower than Sailmail, that we forwarded our shore e-mail accounts to. This worked very well. You can easily have as many of these throwaway my iridium.net e-mails as iOS devices you have (up to 5).

The "free" Iridium iOS apps are more or less a toy or entertainment, in our opinion, and, seen as such, it was a great way to keep checking our shore-based e-mail. Anyone considering Iridium GO! for vital e-mail should consider signing up for e-mail service from Sailmail, X-Gate from GMN, or OCENS.

We are very satisfied with Iridium GO! and plan on signing up for service for every passage longer than about a week.

For short passages, we might either have one of those Iridium GO! prepaid cards that last one year, or just rely on the SSB.

Thanks David & Allan for two authoritative and comprehensive contributions to this thread.
Simon

Hi David and Simon,

Looks like quite a few problems with the regular Iridium GO software.

If you go to the SailMail website - www.sailmail.com - you will see that the same software used for SailMail is now also approved for use with Iridium GO. That might work better. It has been optimized for Iridium, INMARSAT, Thuraya etc for many years, and I know from people that it works. In all cases the smart message handling and compression strategy developed to make emails via SailMail 's network of HF/SSB radio stations very efficient, also makes a difference to the speed - and cost - of using these cheaper-to-buy satellite systems.

SailMail does this so sailors can have an on-board backup - albeit more expensive for connection time - to their regular, economical, HF/SSB radio based email capability. It assumes crews might decide to have a satphone on-board to make occasional (expensive) phone calls for communication tasks which email can 't do, for trips ashore in isolated locations, and for the liferaft grab bag. Or perhaps they have it because MRCC Falmouth does not have a HF/SSB radio and can only suggest a satphone for contact with them when beyond VHF range but still within RNLI lifeboat range.

The people who established and continue to operate SailMail are sailors. Therefore they look at what can help sailors. They do not sell satphones or radios, but provide systems and software to make these work well for the data, weather info, email and yacht management needs of sailors. Their approach is useful for long distance, active sailors, and especially those who like to explore isolated areas, less developed areas/countries and those who cross oceans.

SailMail has software designed to optimize data throughput via its network of 20 HF/SSB stations around the world, because fast and efficient data transfer equals more members able to happily use the same equipment, which keeps equipment requirements and related work to a minimum; and therefore membership fees can stay lower. SailMail does not have monthly bills or other data throughput related fees. Just a simple annual membership fee (US$250) which gives up to 12 minutes connection time per day - averaged over a week - every day of the year, via the 20 HF/SSB radio bases. Members get more data throughput each day by choosing the right frequency at the right time. Everything in the way SailMail works via HF/SSB radio favours and rewards efficiency.

Satellite services have a financial interest in inefficient systems. The more time you spend transferring the same data and the more dropouts/resends experienced, the more money they make. The unit is sold cheap but the money is made from the connection time. You can see by the amount of paid advertising from the satellite service providers compared to paid advertising by SailMail, HF/SSB radio and Pactor manufacturers, who makes the most money from you.

The SailMail software helps to address some of the data handling and compression inefficiencies in these satellite based systems, so they are not so painful on your pocket at the end of the month.

Yachting Australia 's latest Special Regulations (for racing and cruising in regions without effective coastal VHF networks and professional, immediate response S&R services) REQUIRES a HF/SSB radio (with DSC) and RECOMMENDS a satphone for Category 1 and 2 events. The important distinction is the satphone is not required and it cannot substitute for the HF/SSB radio.

This is probably the right approach to use for most cruising and racing where, as the MAID report on Chiki Rafiki describes, yachts need to be more self sufficient and not expect prompt outside help from shore based rescue services. The HF/SSB radio with DSC - switched on 24/7 - creates a quiet and convenient communications net via which mutual support, advice and assistance from nearby yachts - known and unknown - and any SOLAS vessel - known and unknown - can be obtained. You do not need to know who is nearby or their satphone number to contact any other vessel with a similar HF/SSB radio on 24/7 watch; just press the DSC call button. Calls to get advice, waypoints, some diesel, a pump, tow or rescue are free via the HF/SSB (and VHF) marine radios.

With a HF/SSB radio installed as an essential part of on-board equipment for cruising and racing where coastal VHF marine radio systems and RNLI lifeboats do not exist (ie: probably 99% of the world), the extra cost of a Pactor controller to have email - along with NAVTEX, WEATHERFAX, GRIB charts, METAREA and coastal forecasts at no extra service or data transfer cost - via the same HF/SSB radio, is minor and easily recouped compared to satellite data costs.

With a SailMail membership, email backup via regular satphone or Iridium GO using SailMail 's more efficient on-board software will also make these services considerably less expensive to operate; if needed.

I hope this is useful and also elicits more thinking and comments on this topic.

I 've just sent this blast off directly to Iridium:

"I bought an Iridium GO through PredictWind and Satphonestore at the end of last year. I 'm getting adequate support from Jon Bilger at PredictWind, but he, poor man, is having to try to support a sub-standard product. I wanted to let you know directly how disappointed I am with the performance of this unit. My complaints are all software-related, as the hardware seems to be OK. I 've upgrade to firmware 1.4.1 but the problems are still there.

1. The tracking performance is not good, and is below the standard of the competition such as Yellowbrick. Frequently, the position reports are sent in the wrong order, resulting in crazy zig-zags on the tracker map. Jon Bilger tells me that this is because the SMS position report does not contain a date/time stamp.
2. The Iridium GO app for the iPad works reasonably well, but the mail portion of the Iridium Mail and Web app is truly bad, and requires a lot more work. It is below the standard of all other iPad apps in its planning and execution.
2a. It is unable to operate in landscape mode, and I have to be careful not to lock the iPad in landscape and then go to the Iridium Go apps, because they will not display correctly. All other apps, even those written by amateurs, will automatically rotate as the iPad is rotated.
2b. The inbox adds the latest mail at the bottom, and with a lengthening list of incoming emails, I have to scroll right down to the bottom, every time I go to the inbox. Clearly, the latest mails should be at the top. That applies to the other folders as well.
2c. The 'sent ' folder does not have the facility to make folders, so adding the latest mail at the bottom makes things difficult to keep track of.
2d. When writing a reply to a long incoming email, the editor works very badly, truncating the display of the incoming email, so that one cannot see what one is replying to. One has to go back to the original email in the inbox, to check what was written,and then come back to the outgoing draft to continue writing. This does not happen with other iPad apps, such as the native mail app. The editor does not have the usual select/select all/copy/paste etc options that other iPad apps have. Once one has filled a page with writing, it is impossible to continue because the cursor disappears below the keyboard, and the scrolling is no longer stable ' ie, one cannot scroll down to reveal the later text.
2e. One cannot receive jpg attachments, though one can send them. It would be nice to be able to receive and send other small attachments, such as text files and dxf drawing files, which are only a few kb, and it shouldn 't take much effort to add this feature into the app.
2f. I don 't bother with the web portion of the app, because it 's too slow to be of any practical use. I 'll wait patiently for the new, faster Iridium satellites - whenever they will get launched."

Looking at the reviews in the Apple app store, others thinks the same - nice hardware, shame about the apps.

At least I can send and receive emails while offshore, and receive gribs, but oh!, it 's hard work, and a lot more frustrating than it ought to be.

Allan,

Thanks for that. It 's really useful to know about SailMail 's email flexibility which I wasn 't aware of.

There are other price plans for the Iridium data time though. The $125/month is for unlimited data including web browsing. I have a rather more affordable pre-paid 6 month package which gives, I think, either 400 minutes of data or 200 minutes of voice or any mix of the two.

I guess the other consideration for someone starting from scratch is the installation cost of SSB is substantial if you include the cost of the set, the insulated back stay and ground plates. Installation cost of the GO are limited to the cost of the device which will work both on board and on shore. Indeed our use of it to date has been limited to use in the mountains.

The GO gives you a couple of options for email too. You can either use the Iridium compression email software or you can browse any webmail (such as Gmail) and just download the emails you want.

In summary the Iridium GO and SSB / Pactor are very different animals. Probably Iridium has the edge for data versatility but the huge advantage of the SSB is the ability to take part in radio nets and general ship to ship use.

Simon