TechWriter wrote:
ktmrfs wrote:
. . . it's worth the extra $ to go with the inreach or a good sat phone. And in an emergency, with the inreach the help can be continually communicating with you for status, location, what to do etc.
I'm with the go with a "good sat phone" crowd.
This summer our Class A DP broke down in northern WI. As luck would have it, there was no Verizon service where we were. I had to unhitch our toad and drive to the closest town. Long story short, everything turned out ok -- just (just!!!) an expensive engine fix.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I could have used a sat phone to contact CoachNet, but what could I have done with an Inreach Explorer?
inreach may have been able to help you but certainly not as straightforward as sat phone.
In either case you need to know WHO to call. so with a sat phone you need to have the number you need to call somewhere, no way to look them up. same with inreach.
so with a sat phone you would call coachnet directly get through and know instantly what the repsonse is. with inreach the question is does coachnet phone number accept a text message or have an email to contact for help? If the answer is yes, with inreach you would text or email with the info you wanted to relay. they would get the text and your exact gps location and would able to text back to you for further info. Probably not as quick as a sat phone and not as instantaneous response. Score for the sat phone.
If they don't accept text or email, then it would mean texting a contact to have them connect with coachnet.
When you rent a sat phone, often times the number is an international number so anyone calling your sat phone must be able to make international calls, and the cost can be pretty high/minute on their end. If you buy a sat phone you can often arrange to have the number be a country specific number, but dialing to it can still not be like dialing local or long distance and may incur substantial per minute charges on the callers end.
But with the inreach, unless you have sent someone a text message or email at some time, they can't just text or email you either. they have to have a path to the device number. Once you have texted someone they can reply at any time as long as they don't delete the text.
It's easy to text inreach to inreach, but chances that another contact has an inreach is pretty low.
So, neither solution is a quick, easy, obvious as picking up a cell phone and calling or texting.
in the end, IMHO it boils down to picking which will work best for YOU.
I like the inreach because kids and people can see exactly where we are with the tracking feature, we can text back and forth, it includes search and rescue and emergency medical service, since my son and I are avid and frequent off road motorcyclists, it has GPS included, and it offers worldwide transport home in event of hospitalisation. But lack of access to any phone number that won't accept a text is a downside and it is two way texting, not voice. If we need to contact someone who can't be texted or emailed, we text one of our contacts as a go between.
And AFAIK you can't do a short term rental on an inreach. so your out the original price of around $400 plus either a month to month or annual contract of around $200. We travel enougth that it gets used almost every month, so for us it is less cost than a sat phone. If you only need it for a few weeks a sat phone rental is likely less expensive.
Again, what is best for you may not be best for me and vice versa. Either are good options for the right conditions.
My favorite would be to travel with someone who has a sat phone while I have the inreach. Now virtually every option is open.
In the end, I'm glad there are several good options for emergency communication when out of cell phone range. Let's one pick and choose for their application.
