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In harbours there is usually no problem with pointing the antenna, it can tolerate a few degrees of wandering. I have not managed to hold it on target by hand, for one thing, its quite heavy, for another, it only gives an audible signal strength tone while acquiring the satellite. After one is satisfied with the direction, a button is pushed to start the registering mode, and the audible steering tone is switched off. Like most antennas, one's own body influences the signal, so its best to set in on the deck and steer it from behind the antenna at arms length to get the best tone.
So it is not suitable for en-route communications.
Once it is working, the telephone is very high quality sound, as good as ISDN. the SMS service works as expected and the data rate is adequately fast for most applications. So to in harbour/moored and a lot of anchored situations, it is satisfactory. But no use on the move.
I read that Iridium is good for oceanic voice comms, but the data rate is very slow. I have no personal experience with it.
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