Mule Skinner

Thinking about getting one, cell phone coverage not really getting job done as I spend lots of time in areas where there is no cell phone coverage and I am blessed w/ being on call 24/7/365.

Thought maybe a satellite phone might make things better, I know nothing about them.

Anybody have any experience w/ them what to look for what to avoid etc.

justagoodolboy

My company bought 4 back during hurricane Rita so we could communicate since the phones were out. At that time, they were expensive, and the plans were very low usage for alot of $$.

I know there are places you can also rent one. I rented one the last time we went on a hunting trip up North for safety purposes.

This is where we got ours:

http://www.globalcomsatphone.com/

Fronty Owner

before you drop the money on a sat phone ($2000 for the phone alone) check out www.smoothtalker.com Its a 3 watt booster for hand held cell phones.

wyosteve

Muleskinner, I rented one last fall for our annual wilderness trip. First, there are basically 2 major providers-- Qualcomm/Globalstar and Iridium. Qualcomm mainly covers North America. Iridium is more worldwide. Qualcomm has reasonable monthly plans, i.e. 150 minutes for about $65/month. I rented the Globalstar b/c we have a dealer here in town. 2 week rental was about $100 plus $1.25/minute for air time. We got it mainly for emergencies since we were about 7 hrs. by horseback from any phone source. I did play with it a little just to see how it would do. I have to say I was slightly disappointed in that I thought service would be available pretty much anywhere as long as there were no big trees around. One morning I took it to the middle of about a 30 acre meadow by camp and could not get a signal. However, if I hiked up a slight ridge the other side of camp, you could get a signal. When we were higher on the mountain, there was no problem getting a signal. Just so you know, the sat. phones operate on 'line of sight' with the satellites so they won't work inside of a vehicle. Their antennas need to be basically vertical in an open area. So bottom line is it kinda depends on what you want to use it for and where. If you recognize it's minor limitations, they work just fine. I'll probably rent an Iridium this fall to test and will likely buy one after that. By the way, you can get some reasonable deals on EBay if you decide to buy. But I'd suggest renting first to try it. My .02

12valve@heart

Has anyone actually used one of these boosters? Sounds interesting.

Mule Skinner

Thanks for the replies. I think I may give the rental idea a try 1st and decide from there.

Fronty Owner

We have them in a few of our field trucks. between having 5 times the power and a larger, external antenna, you can get a signal in most places. granted, there are places out west and canada that your out of touch, but those places are much smaller than without the smooth talker booster.