Satelite Phones

[ken4ord]

Ok I know this is going to sound geeked out so flame away. This summer I am going to be back out to the PNW and if I am going to get on some alpine routes I am going to need to be reached immediately at any point. So I am asking have any of you used a satelite phone in the Cascades? If so did it work well in the mountains, any brand reccomendations, rental agency reccomendations, any other things I should think about. Note I don't want to buy one, need one while I am there. Thanks.

[cj001f]

Note I don't want to buy one, need one while I am there.

Have you looked at eBay? You can buy an Iridium and prepaid plan for the same as renting for a couple months. Globalstar requires a contract, Iridium doesn't.

[chris]

I've had a sat phone for Alaska expeditions, but we only used to it call out. Leaving it on to receive calls while on the move is pretty useless, since the antenna has to be oriented - plus its pretty battery intensive. Sorry, that's my experience. Perhaps DPS or someone else on the board can correct me.

[DPS]

I agree with mtnfreak. Leaving the Sat phone on for extended periods would drain the battery quickly. Maybe they have sat linked pagers now?

[Stephen_Ramsey]

Maybe a pager with two-way messaging capability would fit your requirements?

[AlpineK]

I used an Irridium phone while we were in the coast range. It worked great. I would second the comment that if you rent for a month you might as well buy one. Also you have to have the antena out to recieve calls, so it's a pain if you're not sitting still or in a car.

[ken4ord]

So are Satelite pagers something they do have? I mean I wouldn't need to call out or even text out. I just need to be reached so that I could turn around and make my way back to Seattle. Do anyone know about these and where I could rent them?

 

In regards to the leaving a sat phone on to recieve calls, couldn't I just orient the antena so that it was sticking out of my pack? Also from what I have seen listed for battery life on these phone is around 19 hours? Is this correct. That would be long enough for my purposes.

 

Thanks for the help so far.

[crazyjizzy]

Trees will be a problem. My rental phone would send from downtown Nairobi, or the Met Station. I was told that a phone has thirty hours stand by time, which to me would mean "recieve". You could check in alot.

[Bigtree]

I know its rather geekish but check out the folding solar panel at the attached link as an option for recharging on the go. I've pondered a work situation or two where this would have come in handy for charging electronics such as sat phones in remote places:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/assortments/p...fromSearch=true

[crackers]

Another thing about the standby time thing is that the sat phone i've used tended to use a heck of a lot more juice when it was searching for coverage than when it was happily connected to the satellites. By a lot, I mean the battery died in 1/2 to 1/4 of the time.

[barkernews]

I use a Globalstar on a pretty regular basis (once or twice a week) and have found that it has more like 20 hours of standby time.

 

The real bummer is that the things have to be out in the

open with their antennas extended in order to recieve calls. Just clipping it to your belt and walking/driving around won't allow you to recieve calls.

 

If you're in a position like a base camp or a parked vehicle for a long period of time you can leave it out in the open and receive calls... but it's not very reliable.

[Distel32]

sounds like someone is planning on hearing news about a certain baby.....????

[ken4ord]

getting prepared.