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.

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.

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 

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

Hello Simon, did you use the tracking option that Preduct Wind offer ? It had been unreliable in the past, and I'm wondering if that has been rectified.

Neil yes the tracking worked well. My only criticism is that if you dip in and out of the Iridium subscription then the track disappears every time you change SIM card. No problem for live aboards but an issue for part timers. Here is our track: https://voyagesofshimshal.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page.html?m=1
Simon

Thanks Simon, I had previously abandoned the Predict Wind tracking as it was quite unreliable - locations appeared out of order etc. I'm glad that they have it fixed. I'm guessing that Iridium finally added time and date stamps to the outgoing messages, or they improved the central mailbox handling and relay process. Now with the tracking, it used to stop at 12 months - everything older than 12 months disappeared - is that still the case ? I'Maybe you hadn't noticed that if you were updating Sim Cards or accounts more often. On request they will extend the tracking display period, but it was all a bit limited. If you're now going to continue with the one sim card / account for a period, you may want to request an extension to the tracking period - Jon Bilger can authorise that.
Neil

Neil,
I think you are right they do delete the track over time regardless of SIM. It’s not a lot of data so it’s a bit mean of them. My main reason for using PredictWind is their weather and departure planning services and software so I have always regarded the tracking as ‘nice to have but not essential’. To send track points with the same frequency with inReach would be quite expensive but the weather capability of inReach is not in the same league as the PredictWind/ IridiumGo combination.
Simon

Hi Simon,
I was looking at buying the Iridium Go since my Iridium Access point and Iridium 9555 are not talking to each other reliably. But, I found that there is another option, the Glow Iridium WiFi terminal. The beauty is that everything is contained on the antena so you don't have any more cables and equipment to charge. The ugly is that is another $1000 more expensive. Here is a link that compare it to other options.
glow-iridium-wifi-terminal
Any experience to share...
Gian Luca

Thanks GianLuca I had never heard of the Glow before. I see it’s the same dataspeed as other Iridium products which is, I guess, driven by their satellites. Interesting that the say it will be VOIP capable at those speeds. The downside for me would be the fixed installation so it would not be possible to take it on shore expeditions or, heaven forbid, into a life raft. Very interesting to hear about it though.
Simon