I might suggest to take a look at the Iridium Go. It's very easy to set up and the additional cost is negligible once you trade in your Iridium 9555. With the PredictWind package of a $125/month, you get unlimited messaging, emails, tracking (I used iboattrack) and you can download the weather as many times you want. I just finish a loop New England, Caribbean and back to New England and I was very satisfied how well it works. I used the same external antena from my Iridium 9555 which I sold on eBay for around $700. For emails, I continued to use XGATE from Global Marine Network but, you can just use the Iridium tools.
Gian Luca Fiori
Vivaldi

I am looking for some advice on Satellite comms packages. We have an SSB radio and an Iridium 9555 system installed. The SIM and air time on the phone is long expired and we are about to set off across Atlantic and Pacific to New Zealand. Last time we used MailaSail and i dont want to use them again - for all the reasons that get posted here.
It seems that lots of people recommend Iridium Go!, but I dont think I can use it without starting again. So i was considering SailMail and an Airtime package. Our usage should be reasonably light - consisting mostly of weather downloads and e mails.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what i should look at?


Many thanks


Stephen Foot
Water Music

Daria,
Thanks for that. Let’s hope it’s affordable
Simon

Yesterday, Space X successfully deployed an Iridum Next generation payload of 10 satellites. https://www.iridiumnext.com/ It will support a whole new technology called Iridium Certus enabling global mobile broadband. I wonder how much it will cost.

"Iridium Certus will integrate with internet, cellular, Land Mobile Radio System, and location-based applications to keep you connected anywhere on the planet."

Vice Commodore, OCC 

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

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

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

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 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

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.