Got a Satellite Phone

The whole business of an Iridium satellite phone was looking highly vexatious. A new one is around £1300 plus air time which is way out of my price league. Second hand ones do not seem to appear in the yachting press. They do however appear quite regularly on Ebay and I was lucky enough to get one for £250 odd on there. It is of course an old 9500 series which is now out of production and does not support data connections.


However for my purposes, it is fine and will serve it's purpose perfectly. I have purchased an airtime deal from mailasail so will be testing it this weekend.

The phone it self is wonderfully retro compared to today's mobile phones. It is styled like mobiles from it's era which is the mid nineties and is also about five times bigger than most phones today. It even has the meaningless flip down cover for the key pad as inspired by the star trek films.