The Best Affordable Satellite Comms for Civilians

So, fir ciders are a very important tool for every tiny man today and we are going to demonstrate it here. Oh, are you here to help? I'm pretty sure I'm not even supposed to know this is happening. Alright. just put some here. In fact, I had a radio question, so when you were in Marso and you were a communicator and you were doing all the sophisticated things at the command level in your rhythm plan, primary alternative contingency, emergency, four devices, right, you had redundancies of the four? devices there would be, there would definitely be redundancy, how many of them were radios like these sweet fakes that we have here and how many of them were something else, okay, so in context, Pace plane, you know you have a rhythm between, for example, you me too. and then me and our command network or whatever, from me to the command network would be, I would say just for simple terms, larger versions of these radios and all that from P to e, even if there are two PS, two A, two C. two e, uh, they would be some kind of

satellite

communication, so there is never line of sight, it would be like the third emergency was HF, but everything else would be satcom, so 75%

satellite

, yeah, yeah , at least 75%, at least 7. so we have to discover the satellites as

civilians

, yes, absolutely fine, so the sun has just set, which is the perfect time for the satellites to shine;

There's still a little bit of sunlight up there, shining on them now, the other time for satellites. shining is an emergency, as you know, Murphy's Law clearly states that you will have emergencies when you are in rural areas without many cell phone towers and you will also have emergencies when other disasters occur that have knocked you out of action. part of the communications infrastructure, so the good thing about satellites is that they are in space, they are not affected by earthquakes or storms or dinosaur escapes, but they are not necessarily completely immune to disasters, they get hit by meteorites, a are sometimes affected. they hit each other, uh, Bond villain lasers and then they communicate with the ground stations and the ground stations are also a little weak, uh, there are many ways the signal could be interrupted, but generally speaking, they are a device Incredibly rock-solid communications system that you should use if you want emergency communications capability Now, the way these satellite constellations work is with multiple satellites surrounding the globe; some of them are in stationary orbit but most of them are closer to earth and moving and global star for example has 48 satellites so they cover most of the world and then aridium has 66 more satellites some spare parts and they cover everything, from pole to pole, so wherever you go on Earth you will have direct line of sight to a satellite and then your communications can go from the satellite. to satellite to satellite back to those ground stations however satellites are expensive they are expensive to build it is very expensive to get them into space keep them synchronized together keep them kept in space in orbit connected to each other and connected to all those redundant The ground stations and all The redundant connections that are necessary for uptime to make them useful for emergency communications cost money, so satellite communications are typically quite expensive for the end user.

All of the satellite devices Brandon was talking about before are quite expensive, there are commercial, industrial and military satellite terminals that are large and clunky bombproof of all kinds, but what they have in common is that the cost is quite high, even the satellite phones that are available to the common people, quite expensive and the charges are like 2 or $3 a minute, uh, just for voice, kind of like cell phones in the 9s, but there is a cheaper way to communicate by satellite and it's something that looks a bit like a pager from the 90s, so the way this works is that there are these little devices that have satellite compatible antennas for the frequencies that are used and they have short bursts of data that go up to the satellite and there are a lot of companies that manufacture them, obviously they are within reach which we will talk about later, but Zio has devices that make this ACR has bivouac stick there is a company called someware they have um devices and they are devices that use other satellite constellations like spot uh use Global star uh I used spot quite a bit in the past, I understand they're not quite as stable as they used to be, but it's probably still a pretty good option and we're going to limit our conversation to basically two devices, those of range are the

best

, but this Motorola defi unit here is the cheapest, not only is it the cheapest. device but it also has the cheapest subscription but what I prefer is a device like the inreach mini where you actually have a screen and buttons so you can use this device without a phone if necessary.

This is great. device if you are sure you can get all your emergency contacts to install the app ahead of time and rest assured that your phone will be charged and functional so you can connect it via Bluetooth in an emergency, this will only be a little more robust to even though it's a lot more expensive and has some extra features like the ability to generate weather requests regardless of where you are, the ability to store multiple points here as waypoints or Roots um while you're browsing this thing gives you little breadcrumbs uh, it's almost exactly like the Garmin Instinct watches, with all the GPS functionality, but there are no stored maps here, but you can also do the satellite communication, all your breadcrumbs are sent to any of your contacts that you want. tracking data to go to so they can see where you were every 10 minutes whether you log in manually or not, and then you can send messages whenever you want.

Now these devices have a disadvantage because they are incredibly small and they have such small antennas that I occasionally have problems with vegetation, so we are here inside the iCal subtropical rainforest of Tennessee, there is quite a bit of canopy above us and I'm going to send a message with something and I'll see how long it takes to get through this is a 1.6 GHz signal. and this is a 1.6 watt transmitter and it's going to take a little while so get started and get in there. Now you are trying to send from this device through the leaves to the satellite and from there you have to go to other satellites and then you have to go down to a ground station, you have to go through the switchboard system, then you have to go to AT&T and then it has to get to this phone, so there are a lot of steps involved and it's worth noting that this device doesn't have a cell phone number, uh, but it will send, there it goes 25 seconds and it shows up at 28 seconds in this device.

It's worth noting that while I can see that the message is coming from a cell phone number, this device is not. I have a dedicated cell phone number inreach has a bunch of cell phone numbers on one big account and when I text a number with this area code it tries to send from one of the numbers they have in that area code and if I answer that number with the phone it will go through the same system back to this device let's do one more test here and time it there are a lot of leaves above us send a quick text I think I'm having a great time send a message without the GPS coordinates are sent anyway, it starts there, let's go 4 minutes, which is the longest it has taken to send those messages and then there is the SOS button and this is another place where I think Garmin wins.

The Garmin Response Center is the largest. It is the

best

, the best established and has the longest track record of any of the global emergency response dispatches, so they have been around for a while, participated in over 10,000 rescues around the world and have teams that simply listen to these emergency messages and because this device has a screen, they can talk to you through the device you know using text messages, they can communicate with you through the device so you can explain to them what is going on and they can tell you how Help is coming soon, so this has some pretty significant value over this device if you can justify paying more for it and also pay more for the monthly subscription.

I love how small this device is and it's quite sturdy, it has no screen just a couple of lights and an SOS button, this requires you to connect it via Bluetooth to a phone to do any two communications you want and one of the Disadvantages of this device is that you practically have to use its application. Actually, it is not the Motorola app. This is made by Motorola. Technically by Lenovo, under the Motorola name, for a company called Bullet that rents satellite time from Skylo, possibly Skylo Ren, which gets it from inm Marat and Global Star, which I believe is now owned by Viat.

This is a very complicated business, but now just for fun. try the little Motorola device. I have Bluetooth activated on my phone. We are in exactly the same place in the forest, let's see if it can pick up satellites and send a message. Let's wait a little longer, maybe my hands will be. It bothers me if we put it in this log, we still can't make that connection, okay, we're higher up, there are less trees above us, let's see what happens here. We have to be practically in a clearing before you can connect the device to the satellite. but let's do our speed test anyway, press the send button, it says sent, let's hope it arrives safely, as I mentioned before, the only way to respond to this message is to download and install the app, which also has an additional capability. some of the other Garmin devices, so here is their line of GPS maps, which is my favorite portable mapping device, but it has built-in two-way communication and is capable of doing some things that even this obviously can't do if you connect them with Bluetooth to a phone, they have the same capabilities.

If you connect them to other Garmin devices, like watches or some of the vehicle's GPS, you'll have a larger screen to send, receive, read messages, and view roots and things like that. that everything works perfectly but it has a big enough screen and more buttons, it's much easier to write messages on this device uh and this is one of the areas where inreach's two-way communication is in some ways much better even though it's not the same advanced, this device is trying to use more modern protocols and that's great, but you are restricted to its proprietary application.

This will allow you to type any phone number and the message you send will be sent as a text message, they can reply to the text message and you will receive the reply on this device anywhere on the face of the Earth and if you send emails to People will receive a link to a website. They can see your exact whereabouts if you wish. and they can respond to you from there and the responses just appear here and within reach will also allow you to talk directly from one device to another. Each of these devices does not have its own permanent phone number, but it does have a permanent email address. so we can send messages from this device to this device and vice versa when we're out in the field and neither of us have cell phone coverage at all.

In that situation, you should probably also keep in mind that there is a pro mode for With the scope monthly subscription, you can go recreational, which is really simple and straightforward, but if you're going to be a team leader or a team manager or the guy in the chair who sits there and you want multiple reach devices, there's a pro subscription. that will allow you to essentially have one login account that manages multiple devices, you can see where they are at all times, this is great for fleet management or equipment management or various other things, so it's an option if you know you're going to have a bunch of these things out in the field doing things, otherwise the recreation should work pretty well for most people start the timer and hit send at the same time while we wait.

I should mention that the reason I have been saying the battery life of this thing is days and I haven't been more specific because it depends on many factors if you send a lot of messages while under this type of tree cover you will use a lot more battery than when you are not absolutely free of obstacles and how often you want to get your location from GPS satellites, that is another factor. There we go, it only lasted 1 minute and 59 seconds. This is really impressive. I can't understand how cool this device is. but you shouldn't buy a device just because it's cool right now, you're probably wondering if you should really buy one of these devices and here's how I would break it down if you already have an iPhone 14, you already have SOS capabilityby satellite you can already use that phone to call for help by satellite you can't do any two way communication with anyone except SOS but that apparently works pretty well if you have a T-Mobile phone apparently the satellite communication comes thanks for Starlink pretty fast exactly it seems which we don't know, but if you don't anticipate any emergencies over the next few months, I would wait and see what the service rollout looks like and then if you're pretty sure you can coordinate when and where your accidents or emergencies might occur and the price actually low is quite attractive, but a more robust system will be the INR system and the most robust of the scope devices is this one, by the way, if you want more of these detailed reviews of specific devices, I recommend you check out the hiker on YouTube because it does an excellent job of testing these various things, obviously there are some disadvantages, one of them is security, the access protocol has been compromised for several years, so your communications are not completely secure, but remember that this device excels at sending text messages and emails that are no longer inherently secure, so your options are to encrypt the message. yourself before submitting it within that 160 character limit, or there is a company called everywhere, not to be confused with somewhere and they sell a version of this device with an encrypted firmware, but the downside is that you have to use their app and only its application.

Useful if you're running really small, well-coordinated teams, but you lose the backwards compatibility and universal communicative power of this device. The ability to text any phone in the world from anywhere in the world is just amazing to me and again, this is a phenomenal mapping device. I have a 32 gig micro SD card here with maps of almost the entire world here, parts of Asia I haven't been able to get good data for and you can also download non-satellite satellite images. but over Wi-Fi and the battery life is tremendous. The fact that you can communicate with almost anyone with this device and only this device and navigate almost anywhere in the world with this device and only this device is just incredible, it feels like a piece. from 90's technology sure, especially when you use the weird little keyboard to start typing messages, that gave me some flashbacks, but if this device was around in the 9's and I had one I would have been blown away, this satellite pager is The most amazing.

I have ever seen in my life that it can send messages from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world and that it can work in Antarctica. It has a battery life that can last for days and is cheaper to use per text than this phone. Now wait a second, why are we still talking about this 90s era technology? Not that I'm complaining, but the reason is quite simple because satellites are so expensive that they have to last a long time. Aridium satellites have a lifespan of like 15 years, so there are some that have been there a long time and have outdated radios that also have to be compatible with all the other Delor and Aridium emergency equipment that is installed throughout type of industrial facilities. and commercial things, so that's one of the reasons why some of these things haven't changed much, but old school technology is tried and tested and there's some value in that, but we're in the 21st century and The future is coming as likely.

I know Starlink has a ton of satellites there right now and you can see Elon Musk launching new trains of them, almost all the time, there are 4500 Starling satellites right now and they should have global coverage when they reach about 12,000. and the Starling satellites are pretty impressive, especially compared to some of the ones from when I was a kid. The original Aridium satellite had, I believe, a 200 MHz processor inside and even the smaller range devices and probably the Inre watches now have 200 MHz processors. The Starlink satellites are very advanced and have a shorter lifespan and They're going up faster and faster, but they still require a big antenna and a ground station and that requires a lot of power, so when it comes to mobile emergencies. communication devices within reach uh still king for now in my opinion if you need a small, cheap laptop that works everywhere uh this is like that um I wasn't planning on turning this into a T-Rex commercial, but that's why sell them on T-Rex, the Motorola device is cool and tries to be a little more modern, but until you do something that goes leaps and bounds beyond the technology we have here, the technology we have here is tried, it's proven and it is very useful to have, so my recommendation to you is to consider what your real needs are and keep an eye on the future of satellite communications because they change all the time.

Starling continues to grow. Amazon is launching its own Kyper constellation at some point. It should have smaller power requirements and smaller antennas. All the changes are happening now. It seems like the sky is the limit, but the technology at your fingertips is what will get you home if you get lost in the not-too-distant future, as I said. For the modern Minuteman, can you get that gas? Yes, I think it's around here. How does it look?