I know you will find this reply strange as it does not contain direct experience for your latitude. We had the SXM service for three months in late summer 2014. We were sailing the Gulf of
Alaska and Inside
Passage from Latitude 48 N to 60 N.
You might ask what does that have to do with your latitude 15 N ? We were constantly affected by a low located about 300 to 600 miles west in the Gulf of
Alaska. It seemed that this low was being reenergized from tropical depressions spinning up from lat 15 N. In the AM planning I would sneek a look at the pressure forecasts nearly out to Ha and get the NOAA
North Pacific text alerts and warnings which included your
offshore waters. Another useful report was the
offshore buoy reports.
All of this came in and displayed graphically on the
Garmin chartplotter. Coastal and 300 miles offshore reporting were pretty complete between lat 15N to 55N. Doppler reporting was nonexistent except at the lower 48 for about 40 miles offshore.
Reception was poor above 55 N , as I think the the Sat signal was about 10 degrees above the horizon. It appeared to me that the completeness of info would be similar down to about Cabo.
We have been doing some backstay mods which knocked out the availability of SSB. The SXM weather was the most expedient way to get weather for this 2600 NM voyage. To our surprise ,
fish boats and most tugs were subscribed. Would suggest getting aboard a vessel that is subscribed to verify what is available in your locale. An enquiry on the
Vhf in an anchorage should come up with at least one subscriber.
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