Satphone on move
 

Has anyone any experience of a Satphone that can be used on the move from a car.

I have seen such a system in Australia (but purely for Australia), and the handhelds are fine for making outgoing calls - but you can't drive along with your hand out of the window waiting for incoming ones.

Anyone out there with something like this fitted?

Sam.

Thuraya offer some gadget that enables your sat phone indoors, so I guess it would work in a car too.

Ch

There is a seconrady, "external" antena available for the motorola iridium phones which you can stick on the roof of your car. iridium works worldwide. but i doubt it will work properly and always while you're moving, the whole technology is sensible. i had to keep stil while talking or the phone lost connection to the satelite. but that might have been caused by the hardware i used.

Cheers
Kudi

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Ride Your Dreams

The iridium system does indeed have an external antenna, with a magnetic mount, so you need to use a roof rack or modify your Landys roof. Anyway the external antenna works fine in my experience if away from trees. You ideally need about 20 inches of flat metal around the antenna as a ground plane. Don't know about other systems, but the pricipal will be pretty similar.

Andrew.

There are dozens of antenna designs that deliver perfect results, it's a question of the money you want to invest (and of the end user certificate and export restrictions...we know where the stuff is coming from).
Check the web pages of the hardware providers for the different systems, Iridium is definitely a reasonable choice as it's the only true global system with compact phones.

Regards,
Peter

Thuraya and Globalstar both have car kits for exactly this purpose. In practicality whenever we need to make a phone call in the desert we usually stop. These units come in handy on the receiving end since you’ll be reached all the time.

PeterM, Globalstar is also an attractive option. I used it a for a while a couple of years ago and it worked great.


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A.B.

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