I am thinking Skype may be a good way to say in touch. The Skype website they showed their hotspots in the Caribbean , they were limited ,showed no hotspots south of Antiqua . Can someone confirm that one can connect to Skype further south down to Grenada ? Has Skype proved to be a reliable means to communicate back to the states? Has, as Trevor mentioned, the unintentional downloading of updates been a problem ?

                                                                                                                                                                    Thanks, Pat SM #123                           

-----Original Message-----
From: seafeverofcuan <seafeverofcuan@...>
To: amelyachtowners <amelyachtowners@...>
Sent: Sun, Feb 16, 2014 5:54 am
Subject: Re: [Amel Yacht Owners] sat phones

 

Another Fleet Broad band user.

FACTS YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW

A Skype app. is lethal for downloading updates without you knowing until you get your bill.

All and I mean ALL apps. and programs must be switched off before you connect to the internet otherwise your PC will download every update it can find out there and you have no way of knowing until the bill arrives.

I find it works much better and cleaner with a Mac Book Pro logging on to a dedicated closed email address with Mailasail.co.uk. That way there is no roaming for updates from other internet sites.

The Sat phone charges commence the moment you start to key in a phone number NOT when the call connects.

 Downloading large data files (e.g. manuals, instructions ) while at se a can be a very costly business $1k plus! if the connection drops out - how do I know this?

It works very very well but is prohibitively costly and I always pull the jack plug out of the Mac when not in use.

For weather charting and routing,all sites, it is simply fantastic.

I still haven't sailed into a dead zone and always have had coverage.

Excellent for safety I have used it to relay piracy from The African coast to UK navy in minutes.

In saying all that Blackberry world roaming $100 per year wins every time for solid land based communication at affordable and reliable rates.

Knowing what I know now I would never have installed Fleet as the running costs never came close to what I was lead to believe, it is just too expensive.

Average annual billing using Fleet including some business use $10 to 14k over a three year period.

At least forty per cent of this was data i.e. updates I didn't know about or want.

The most stable PC platform for Fleet has been Windows XP3.

I would choose my hand held Iridium over Fleet simply because you know what the bill is going to be and you can call anytime from your Sat. phone to get the balance.

The Satellite dish is mounted on the port side pushpit rail with a stabilizing bracket and has been a success.

Fair Winds,

Trevor lusty

Seafever