Best Way For Weather Reports

[rebel heart]

Just call someone and ask them what the weather will be. You don't need, nor are models accurate enough to provide, dead-on detail of exact wind speeds at exact locations. So have a friend that can talk you through what he or she sees on his blazing fast Internet connection back in the states.

Calling back home once a day with a satellite phone is easy enough, and it's about 1/100 times the frustration to just talk it out over the phone than to sit there dorking around with downloads.

If you want to do it the "real" way by all means, but if it's holding you up from a departure don't let it, just call someone and ask what the weather forecast is for the next few days.

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by SV Demeter

[...] I use some software that came with the phone called iridium direct Internet. [...] I thought about x gate and ocens and decided all they did was compress email and for $250/year I could live without email on passages or use the money to but more air time.

XGate (and OCENS, which is the same core software) do much more than compression -- they use a fine-tuned protocol that is optimized for the high-latency, easily-disrupted satellite network connections. They perform *much* better than regular email protocols. It's entirely possible that Iridium Direct Connect also uses a similar optimized connection protocol, but I'm not familiar with it.

As for calling someone and asking for a weather forecast, that certainly works for short passages. When I'm sailing 2200 miles between landfalls, I want a method that provides a bit more detail than that. And, I would rather make my own routing decisions. There are many ways to deal with passage weather forecasts, and if you (anyone) don't want to work with satphones and email there are plenty of other quite reasonable options.

[Ozbullwinkle]

Thanks Ted, your process sounds quite strightforward. I wish my Iridium Extreme with Axcesspoint also was. I can make the wifi connection but cannot get any Viewfax files. I am going to open a new thread specifically for this so that this thread regarding weather reports does not drift off track. Thanks for all your help so far which has been invaluable especially in regard to Viewfax itself which I am now a fan of.

No probs getting the files via my home wifi but the Iridium Extreme with Axcesspoint do not want to play ball - yet - but I am determined to crack it.

Rebel Heart - calling home is not an option for me as I have a considerable passage coming up that I am preparing for which is from St Martin to Vanuatu so getting weather reports from on shore people applicable to the part of the Pacific that I am in is not really practical.

Steve