Satphone choice

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Oh, and perhaps I should have mentioned......... the first number in my Satphone's Phonebook List is the RFDS.

That's what I am looking at as I am doing more adventure bike travelling and less 4wd which had a HF.

Did you still find it ok with reasonable horizon in southern Australia to connect for calls..?

It's worked everywhere I've wanted it to except deep in a valley under heavy tree cover. I haven't tried to use it in Tassie but it works fine in Sydney.

We purchased a prepaid sim from "The Satphone Shop", no plan (https://www.satphoneshop.com/). Once activated you can choose the length of time that you want to have the card active for. We chose 50 mins talk time for 30 days for $150 (including the cost of the sim card). You can extend another 30 days (no extension to time as in minutes) for $60. So long as you activate the card once every year, the card remains valid. If you go over 12 months without activating it you need to purchase a new card. They also hire phones out. Plans are expensive, and unless you absolutely have to be contactable 24/7, I think you are wasting money purchasing a plan. Hiring the phone, or purchasing your own phone and buying a prepaid sim card seems to be more cost effective. There are plenty of secondhand phones on Ebay.

McLaren3030 - the Thuraya/Pivotel $15/month plan isn't expensive - a year costs less than 60 days of prepaid...

Peter,

If you only need 30 days of coverage it only costs $150, you only need to pay the extra if you want to extend the number of days. In the many years of outback travel that we have done, we have only ever been "remote" for about 10 consecutive days. $15/month for 12 months = $180. Why pay for 12 months when you only need a few days.

Macca.

Yes I did read of that Motherhen - important point to include in our selection, even though we mostly need this for remote travel in the northern half of the country.
Thanks

Thanks Graham. Looks like the Pivotel plan is the one to go for based on the feedback so far, whichever phone we go for. Hope to catch up somewhere out there this year :-)
Cheers

Thanks for that informative reply - I'm frequently given cause to appreciate the way in which people on this forum take the trouble to give the benefit of their experience.
We've got two of your three basic questions covered I think - yes, it's Australian use only, and yes we are looking for a separate phone. Cost is part of the continuing research, and there seems to be a fair range of options regarding both phones and plans - but Thuraya seems to fit the bill for our sort of travel and Iridium is clearly top of the heap.
We are on the road an average of five months each year, mainly outback, and we're not looking for daily chats to family or anyone else - we like the solitude, but want to be properly equipped just in case.
And we always have our GME PLB for dire emergencies.
Our travel is mainly four wheel driving and some bushwalking (fairly gentle as befits older folk!)
Thanks again for your helpful information.
Cheers

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Hey Baz, I had not seen your blog before, but loved your "financial rationale" presented with your requisition for a Satphone.

Your structure for minimisation of call costs is interesting and maybe necessary if you have work-related or family needs, but a 'Satcall' whilst at peace in the Never Never is the last thing I would want. Ours stays connected to the 12v to maintain the battery at peak and constantly connected to the network via an external antenna to minimise delay in the event of an emergency. Our family know that they can call if need be, but otherwise leave us alone. We can chat when we return home.

Hi Allan,

"Whilst at peace in the Never Never is the last thing I would want"

And for the most part, we are of the same view, in which case we just turn it off (it is an option)...

But by setting it up the way we have gives us the option of having a low cost and continuous communication anywhere in Australia...all for the cost of 1-litre of fuel a day (or a VB for those inclined).

And to put the 1-litre of fuel into context, I came across the Hay Plain a week or so back into a roaring headwind with the TVAN in tow, fuel consumption through the roof - I wouldn't have noticed that 1-litre of fuel that paid for the Sat phone.

Our view has been the Sat phone is expensive to purchase, so put it to good use to make it pay its way...

Cheers, Baz

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Sure Baz, I understand where you are coming from.

But the first line of your response quoting me may be a Freudian error.
Your omission of ".... but a Satcall..." totally reversed my postulation.

I have an Iridium satphone, probably only turned it on 2 or 3 times, at only $120 per annum I put it into the same category as other emergency equipment such as, EPIRBs, fire extinguishers, life jackets, insurance policys etc, all things you have that you hope you never have to use.
I wonder if anybody has ever really thought about how much we do spend on things that we hope to never use?

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It's all called "Insurance" Shaker.

And the amount that each of us has is proportional to our insecurity. lol

Thanks Baz, you've certainly covered all options - very useful info. Cheers

Hi Shaker

If you’ve only turned it on 2-3 times it has probably cost you anywhere between $300 to $500 each time you fired it up.

Of course depends on what you paid for it.

In the case of my Iridium Extreme, if I had only turned it on 3 times, that would equate to $600 a pop, making it an expensive bit of kit not earning its keep.

But more importantly, by using mine regularly I ensure it is charged and I’ve got a reasonable level of confidence that it is in good working order, just in case it is called upon to do more than just allow me to talk to Mrs Landy...

Good luck out there...

Cheers, Baz - The Landy

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Baz,

I, for one maybe, cannot follow your logic or mathematics.

Are you saying that if the phone is never turned on then it has cost you nothing?

Surely its cost is the purchase price plus the operating plan charges and you pay this even if you never use it?

Value, as opposed to cost, is what you gain from having the phone available.
This can vary from peace of mind, through social convenience, to life-saving.

Hi Allan

Quite logical.

If you buy it and never switch it on it has cost you say $1,800 (at least in my case).

Now it will always have cost $1,800, but you could look at it and say, if I switch it on twice, it will have cost me $900 to switch it on each time. If it's 100 times than it has cost me $18 each time I switched it on.

Let me help you out further. It is just one simple measure of cost and value...

But let's use tyres, as an example (maybe it's just a phone thingy that confuses it).

If you buy a tyre today for $350 and drive home with it on, say 10 kilometres shop to home there on the Sunshine Coast, than that tyre has cost you $35 per kilometre driven, so far.

But when you do your big outback trip and return with 10,000 kms under the tyre's belt the cost has reduced to $0.035 per kilometre driven...Perhaps it might be a useless measure, for some, but if you were running a trucking fleet it might have some relevance...

No need to explain you aren't running a trucking fleet (are you?).

But hey, let's not get all worked up on that particular point I made.

My blog outlines what we do with our Sat phone and our rationale as too why.

And my point to Shaker is that unless you use it regularly you may not know something has gone amiss when you need to use it - that's Murphy's Law for you...

But each to their own.

My way of looking at it works for me and helps rationalise the purchase on a cost only basis (yes,yes, there are other considerations - that's why we have one).

But hey, Mrs Landy points out that I'm usually wrong at least once per day.

Perhaps today's "wrong" is the way I presented my view...or maybe it is spending (way) too much time debating on an internet forum what is essentially "my viewpoint"

Good luck out there; got to go, Mrs Landy has just asked have I rearranged the sock draw that she's be nagging me about...

Baz - The Landy

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Ha ha Bazz, convenient mathematics. But by your formula, if I buy it and leave it on permanently, it has cost me nothing? (xx.xx dollars divided by infinity = zero)

Enough, lets leave it. lol