Whirlpool

Has anyone any knowledge of internet for ships or yachts. My brother is buying a large catamaran and is looking for ship to shore communication. Phone, fax and internet. everything seems very expensive and SLOW. What are people using (equipment and providers) Any assistance greatly received.

dementor writes...

Has anyone any knowledge of internet for ships or yachts.

Nothing to do with the word MARINE is ever cheap.

One of the better known providers would be Inmarsat www.inmarsat.com/Service...p;textonly=False however it wont be cheap.

Assuming he has his MROCP licence beleive calls can be patched though, esp in emergencies...???

Another option for local internet is possibly your local marina whaich some of them provide wireless access within the marina, but may extend out a few kms from that marina.

Yes I've had interests in this, but not the numbers to start anything up, or wouldn't be cost effective for consumers I suspect.

Possibly Telstra's NextG wireless card might penerate out there, if ANYthing will it will.

Next G is really going to be the best option if you are within 30Km or so of the coast. It will need a very tall antenna mast if you are more than 20Km away from the tower. Ideally you would want a yagi antenna that has a motorised rotor to point it at the tower. Omni direction antennas really are much good once you go a fair distance out.

In theory this system can support up to 80Km range. I have heard of this being done on land, but not out to sea.

what's up skip writes...

Next G is really going to be the best option if you are within 30Km or so of the coast.

Agreed skip, and your possibly going to get internet, video and viop software phone all in one connection via [waterproof] notebook

It will need a very tall antenna mast if you are more than 20Km away from the tower

Reason being it's generally LOS="Line Of Sight" for these higher frequencies, though the utms850mhz (Telstra NextG) may have the best chance of all IMO

Ideally you would want a yagi antenna that has a motorised rotor to point it at the tower. Omni direction antennas really are much good once you go a fair distance out.

Omni may be his only choice, as seastate conditions will dictate, and alhough a Yagi may direct most of it's energy in one direction, from memory it does this at the cost of a narrow beam bet 7-10deg, which would restrict point it to any land base tower.

Most vessel to vessel radio transmissions would have LOS of 5-6 nautical miles given curvature of the earth.

Perhaps see if you can borrow a NextG card or phone (which must be locked on NextG only) and do some sea testing... (do you need any assistance on sunny days, when all female crew onboard)

In theory this system can support up to 80Km range. I have heard of this being done on land, but not out to sea.

Perhaps Telstra's marketing arm, promoting extreme penetration in baron conditions.

Cheers
Tekmann

Thanks for the responses. My brother is in need of communication out to sea as well so he can get weather information. The great thing about being in a catamaran is that he should be able to outrun bad weather if he can see it coming. From reading other threads I see that satellite can fail in bad weather the very time he would need it. So with this in mind he is also looking at a HF radio internet connection. Now that is slow! So if anyone knows of good providers to look at and the appropriate equipment to use keeping in mind that he doesn't want the national dept. this input would be appreciated.