(I searched the archive and Google but came up empty on this - forgive me if this topic has been done to death.)We want to do more boondocking, but we have elderly infirm relatives -- we hate to be out of touch in case we are needed. Cell does not often work in the way back areas, especially in the Far West and the Southwest. If you have had recent experience with renting a sat phone, how did it go? Did it connect reliably? Does it work from inside an RV, or do you have to find open sky? Are trees a problem? How was the sound quality? Was there static, or a delay in transmission and reception? (Texting would do fine for us, if voice is not as reliable.) Was it a hassle to get signed up? To get delivery of the device? To set it up? To return it at the end of the rental? Thanks in advance for your advice!!

I own a couple of Iridium sat phones and always have one with a current active SIM card.First off, YES you must have a clear line of site to the sky and it has to be a lot of visible sky, not just some little patch. Despite the movies and TV shows, they DO NOT work from the bottom of some mine shaft or underground bunker or inside of a tent or inside of a building. That means they don't work inside of an RV either unless you have a remote outsde antenna installed which has clear unobstructed access to the sky. It also means that even if you're outside, you are not going to make a connection if you're sitting under the RV awning or a lot of shade trees.So, if you're camped someplace, it's relatively easy to walk someplace where you have a lot of sky access and make your call. Receiving a call is usually a pain due to the lack of consistent sky access. You can receive and send text messages so if a person can't connect to your sat phone for a call, they can leave you a text message. Then, if you are diligent about finding a good sky place and regurally make connection with the sat phone, you'll see their text message and can call them.DON'T except to go to sleep with the sat phone on in the RV and have it ring during the night if Grandma has a problem if you don't have an external antenna or the external antenna is under the trees.In the US there are two main sat phone providers for hand held units. They are Iridium which uses 64 or 69 satellites covering the world. Then other is Globalstar which has only a couple of satellites up over the equater. This means the further you go north or south the more blockage they have to their signal. Globalstar per minute cost is cheaper than Iridium because their coverage or connection is not equal at all to Iridium. If you feel that you need a sat phone, then you need one with the most reliable connections.After buying or renting a phone, you'll find a wide variety of Sim card options. These range from what I buy which is a 500 minute plan with the minutes good for three years any place in the world for $700+. I buy one of these each year which usually means I have 1,000+ minutes on the phone. You will be surprised how many minutes you use when there's an emergency or you have a broke down rig and you're trying to find parts.From there the SIM packages decrease in cost and usability. By that I mean where you'll be given sat phone access and how long the minutes will last. They can limit access to just Alaska, or to the US and Canada but not Mexico. Life of the minutes can last from three years down to 30 days. You can rent the phones off of the internet and buy minutes from Amazon. To understand the minute packages you should probably call and talk to the seller to fully understand what you're buying. Also talk to them about the various phones. The slightly older Iridium 9500 and 9505 phones can easily be hooked up to an Iridium remote antenna with a 10' cable and a magnetic base. The trick is to find a metal surface on an RV to use the magnetic base on. I've never tried to use a remote antenna with the newer phones. I find it a lot easier to just set a time like 8:00PM to check in each night. With a sat phone you only pay for the actual seconds used, they don't round up to the next whole minute like cell phones used to. When you turn on the phone and it successfully registers with the satellite network, it will tell you how many minutes you have left.Sat phones do not work with 800, 866 and other toll free phone numbers. This is important if you try to make plane reservations - find a non-800# before you need it.Bill

I am sure they have improved, the last time I used one there was a delay that took getting used to. Shop around for plans, air time can be darn expensive.

Great tips! Bill, when you do your daily message check, how long does it take to connect? Is it a big hassle?

profdant139 wrote:Great tips! Bill, when you do your daily message check, how long does it take to connect? Is it a big hassle?It takes about a minute usually to make a connection. I turn the phone on when I exit the tent or RV, extend the antenna, hold the phone out in front of me so my body isn't blocking the antenna from the sky and usually by the time I've walked to a clearing, the phone has registered with the satellites. Just like on a cell phone, there's a little bar meter telling you how strong the connection is.When you call a phone number the computer voice will tell you how many minutes you have left before your call starts.Your time starts ticking when both parties are connected. Then you just have to discipline people on the other end to not waste time talking about things that you can catch up on later.Bill

If you can meet your needs with texting, the Garmin Inreach is very affordable. Send and receive texts from the irridium network for a price similar to cell service. But no voice calling.

Experiences with sat phone rentals?? | Good Sam Community

11 Replies

ktmrfs
Explorer II
Nov 22, 2017
profdant139 wrote:
Great, great tips here about the Inreach and texting as an option -- especially Tiger's point about giving the key players a message that they can reply to. In our situation (needing to be in touch with the family about our three elderly relatives), we know that even if the elderly relatives are not able to deal with texting, our younger relatives will be able to do so with ease.

I need to do some more homework, but this may do the job for us.

Hint: you won't find many places that will discount an inreach. However, watch REI co op, occasionally they offer 10% off, and you still get the annual purchase credit so it can save you a few bucks.
profdant139
Explorer II
Nov 22, 2017
Great, great tips here about the Inreach and texting as an option -- especially Tiger's point about giving the key players a message that they can reply to. In our situation (needing to be in touch with the family about our three elderly relatives), we know that even if the elderly relatives are not able to deal with texting, our younger relatives will be able to do so with ease.

I need to do some more homework, but this may do the job for us.
ktmrfs
Explorer II
Nov 21, 2017
Tiger4x4RV wrote:
Ductape wrote:
If you can meet your needs with texting, the Garmin Inreach is very affordable. Send and receive texts from the irridium network for a price similar to cell service. But no voice calling.

Agreed, and I like my InReach. Do note that, at least on my 2-3 year old model, the InReach owner has to initiate the contact. You won't be receiving texts or emails unless in response to something you sent. I sent each of my major contacts a message and asked them to save it in an emergency folder so they would have something to "reply" to if they needed to get in touch. I agreed to check for messages at a certain time each day; much of the time my InReach is off to save its battery. I send a preset (free) message each day when I make camp, so they know I am OK.

current inreach is the same.

Once someone has a text or email from an inreach device, it is good forever to use as a reply method. But they must keep it.

What I do is have a contact list that I send a text/email to when we start a trip. that way they have a way to contact us anytime.

One exception to this on the latest version is that you can communicate between inreach devices at all times as long as you know the other inreach information.

Also the current inreach has 3 text message with contacts that are free to send at all times. And you can then create 20 additional text messages to store on the device along with a contact list that can be a large number of contacts. And then you can link it to your phone via bluetoon to send messages rather than typing on the inreach display. I just use my phone speach to text to make a new text message or select one of the saved ones.

I had a spot messanger, it is now out of use, its amazing how superior the inreach is to a spot.
ktmrfs
Explorer II
Nov 21, 2017
Ductape wrote:
If you can meet your needs with texting, the Garmin Inreach is very affordable. Send and receive texts from the irridium network for a price similar to cell service. But no voice calling.

my suggestion as well. we have the inreach explorer +, it uses the irridium sat's, so you are just as likely to get a connection as a irridium phone. We have used it now for about 6 months flawless. But like a sat phone, need to be outside. Once you contact someone by text or email they can text or contact you via internet.

may cost you less to buy a inreach and keep using it than renting a phone. inreach also has good gps, tracking, and SOS and extraction for emergencies included.

Now on Sat phones. I have several friends with sat phones, ALL of them had tried globalstar phones and quickly got rid of them for irridium. Globalstar phone use geosyncronous sats at the equator so you MUST have a view of the southern sky. without it you will NOT get reception.

Irridium uses LEOS sats that overlap around the globe. If you are on flat land you can pretty much be guaranteed 100% coverage. if you are surrounded by mountains, there are times when you can be without coverage for 10+ minutes every hour.

That is one advantage of the inreach, it will keep transmitting or recieving periodically till it verifies it made sat contact.
Tiger4x4RV
Nomad
Nov 21, 2017
Ductape wrote:
If you can meet your needs with texting, the Garmin Inreach is very affordable. Send and receive texts from the irridium network for a price similar to cell service. But no voice calling.

Agreed, and I like my InReach. Do note that, at least on my 2-3 year old model, the InReach owner has to initiate the contact. You won't be receiving texts or emails unless in response to something you sent. I sent each of my major contacts a message and asked them to save it in an emergency folder so they would have something to "reply" to if they needed to get in touch. I agreed to check for messages at a certain time each day; much of the time my InReach is off to save its battery. I send a preset (free) message each day when I make camp, so they know I am OK.
Scottiemom
Nomad
Nov 21, 2017
When we went to Alaska in 2013, we rented a satellite phone from:

Satellite phone store

They were easy to work with and answered all my questions.

We only actually used it one, but it did work just like a regular phone. Bill offered very good tips and knows more. We took one because my DH has very serious heart problems and I wanted to be able to access emergency services if necessary. Would do so again.

But we did get good service from the Satellite phone store.

Dale
Ductape
Explorer
Nov 21, 2017
If you can meet your needs with texting, the Garmin Inreach is very affordable. Send and receive texts from the irridium network for a price similar to cell service. But no voice calling.
Trackrig
Explorer II
Nov 21, 2017
profdant139 wrote:
Great tips! Bill, when you do your daily message check, how long does it take to connect? Is it a big hassle?

It takes about a minute usually to make a connection. I turn the phone on when I exit the tent or RV, extend the antenna, hold the phone out in front of me so my body isn't blocking the antenna from the sky and usually by the time I've walked to a clearing, the phone has registered with the satellites. Just like on a cell phone, there's a little bar meter telling you how strong the connection is.

When you call a phone number the computer voice will tell you how many minutes you have left before your call starts.

Your time starts ticking when both parties are connected. Then you just have to discipline people on the other end to not waste time talking about things that you can catch up on later.

Bill
profdant139
Explorer II
Nov 21, 2017
Great tips! Bill, when you do your daily message check, how long does it take to connect? Is it a big hassle?
romore
Explorer II
Nov 21, 2017
I am sure they have improved, the last time I used one there was a delay that took getting used to. Shop around for plans, air time can be darn expensive.