Poll: Are satellite phones part of your preparations ....

[CountryGent]

So, I've been reading a book about emergency communications this month. Most of it was nothing new, but I have found some tidbits that are interesting. And it has got me thinking about some improvements, plans, etc., in our communications preps.

The book reminded me about satellite phones. We were setup with said some time back (mid/late 2000s), but I finally discontinued the service and sold off the equipment. I could see looking into it again, though I believe most of the negatives still exist.

How about you, are satellite phones part of your preparations? If so, what service (e.g., GlobalStar, Iridium, Inmarsat, etc.)? What equipment are you running?

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[CoastRange57]

You have to assume that others still have some sort of access to telephone services. Depending on the type of SHTF, there may some telephone infrastructure left or none at all. Cell sites and some repeater sites can run on genset power for a while, but antennas can go down, power can be lost any number of variables will take it out.

Satellite phones are expensive and expensive to use. When one of our sons was forward deployed in Afghanistan they had a sat phone they rotated through the platoons, and we got a call from him every couple of weeks. It was an OK connection, nothing spectacular and it failed a couple times. The other son would call from Iraq and they had a lot better infrastructure for phone call on base.

I will stick with my 2 meter for local, 6 / 10 meter for a bit longer, and my bucket list wish it to do some Morse code work some day. If you can generate power you can transmit, and if power is limited Morse code requires a lot less power.

 

[bbbass]

Who ya gonna call?

Satphones are unreliable in my experience. The last time my radio shop had one it was on Globalstar... total garbage and constantly down. Not worth the $$ or effort.

Iridium is suppose to be better.

But how are you going to pay for your monthly fees during SHTF? And if you pay yearly, what happens when your plan runs out and it's still bad out there? And why should they keep anything running, or reserve time for commercial traffic?

 

[Misteramax]

Op...no...throw that phone in the trash.

 

[CountryGent]

Our satphone is long gone. With the mix of comms we have, while not perfect, we've got much of the bases covered. I'm working on another project now that will help if the big ones go down, but I will reserve that for another thread, left it should derail. I just thought I'd toss it out there for discussion.

 

[bbbass]

Silly boy!!!

 

[Stomper]

I'm unplugging and going completely feral.

 

[CountryGent]

Oops, I forgot the "go completely feral" option in the poll.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Yes, my tracker says you have sweet sweet cankles.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I'm unplugging and going completely feral.

I'm calling turnips. The real stomper couldn't spell "and".
We're coming for you, Stomper!

 

[bbbass]

It's official. I now hate polls. What a useless waste of time and effort.

 

[Kruel J]

VHF/UHF ham radio will be much more reliable. Even on simplex.

 

[bbbass]

VHF/UHF ham radio will be much more reliable. Even on simplex.

Yep we talked about that in at least one other thred. Most folks prefered a Beowolf or somethin.

 

[Kruel J]

Yep we talked about that in at least one other thred. Most folks prefered a Beowolf or somethin.

LOL Baofeng.

Me, personally? I own Yaesu and Icom gear. My car sports an Icom 2M radio with a through-the-glass antenna. Not too often you see a late model Subaru with a VHF radio antenna and a decal that looks like an AR bolt face on it. I dare to be different.

Oh yeah, and an AR pistol stashed somewhere in it with a few mags as well.

 

[Velzey]

Nope cuz the first group of hipsters I see chatting on their sat phone, it shall be mine!

 

[Stomper]

I'm calling turnips. The real stomper couldn't spell "and".
We're coming for you, Stomper!

I'd bring up the whole "playin' handball against the curb"
thing, but.... yeah.


Tally Ho!!

 

[The Heretic]

No - because as at least one person pointed out, you still need (usually) the earth side telephone infrastructure to be working and that is not a guarantee.

 

[Urgaburga]

I have used them in very remote areas of the world and found them to be unreliable. Imagine how pissed you'll be when the SHTF after paying $3000 for a brick.

 

[bbbass]

I have used them in very remote areas of the world and found them to be unreliable. Imagine how pissed you'll be when the SHTF after paying $3000 for a brick.

We sold them and rented them out... at my office in La Grande more than half the time you couldn't get a signal in the parking lot. Not a low signal, just "Out of Service". For days. If it don't work now, it'll be worse then.

 

[HB of CJ]

Consider that in any or most serious SHTF the first thing that will get overloaded then over whelmed then drop off either temporary or indefinitely is any and all types and forms of communications that rely or demand modern electronic stuff.

Cell towers. Repeaters. Satellites including long distance telephones, GPS, possibly private corporate dedicated comm channels. Satellite phones. Such commercial and civilian infrastructure is designed and intended for only 2-5% potential use.

Think of SHTF fractional banking, paper currency and the Fed quantitative easing only substitute communication failure potentials. I got to use a satellite phone once. Not like the movies. It worked but sucked. Expensive also if memory serves. Not good.

2001 Biscuit fire. SW OR USA. Wild times.

Edited by HB. Biscuit fire at first. Somewhere I still have a tee shirt. Then they changed the name to the Florence Fire. Over 400,000 gross ac burned. We eventually had in the Illinois Valley SW OR fire apparatus from California, Washington and Idaho.