I always enjoy Ryan's technical episodes. The information is well presented and thorough. I can relate to him not being as communicative when sailing since he is concentrating on the process and planning the next move. These tech reviews really let you shine Ryan and I look forward to more.
You guys have quickly become my favourite sailing channel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve literally laughed out loud at your wit and humour Sophie. The editing and all the work you put into these is fantastic. Well done! Ryan, all the tech videos are great and you have done a great job of breaking down and explaining things. I find them to be interesting, and more importantly, everything I’m learning from you (both). I hope you continue with them. Hands down, the best part of your channel is that it’s just Real! A normal couple sharing the good and the not so good and how you manage it all. Keep up the great work guys! I so thoroughly enjoy it. Thank you!
Well done. One missing piece IMO: The huge value office comms that a SSB (HF) radio provides...and the more distant you sail, the more valuable the info you will have access to: new clearance requirements, passage nets, detailed wx analysis discussions, easy email and NOAA comms and certainly more. But yes, it's niggly to install + learning curve.
Congratulations! Sounds like we might end up being boat buddies - your plan is almost identical to mine! Hoping to get away from the UK around May time and take a leisurely cruise down the Spanish and Portuguese coasts before heading to the Canaries via Morocco
I'm glad I found your channel. You offer a ton of easily understood information. Thanks its really helpful. You just picked up another subscriber. Have a great sail wherever you two are. Thanks again Sid
Sat phones USE BIG TOWERS, Research LORAN, it was first used in the 1940s & they were able to locate exactly where the navy ships were by USING TOWERS !!
I use my xiegu x5105 with a chameleon antenna to send and receive weather and email thru winlink its NOT $5 to 8k like you say might want to get your facts straight when talking about SSB and alternate radios my rig was less than 1K .So yea throw your antennae up the mast in any configuration dipole or Y and I can talk all over the world its slow but pretty much free also its portable which means I can take it to the beach in the dingy and set it up with my solar panel and talk to people world wide. Just my dos centavos.
Wow, that was some darn great review work on Telecom options for cruisers. It was compact, still detailed and very professional. Please do keep creating and posting these types of videos.
Great video. I especially liked the 'rolly cam' gimbaled camera experience, hah. I can *almost* feel the seasickness coming on. I think I'd stick with the tracker since I'm frugal and one of the things I like most about sailing is NOT having much contact with the world :)
Good video.Thanks. What you say hear will definitely affect the choices I make once I'm ready to cast off. Starlink is definitely part of my future sailing plans. I won't wait for it before I head out...but it will be onboard once it's proven on boats.
Starlink wont work if you take it out of your locality, it also wont work if you are moving - at all - so even just a boat rocking around sat in the marina will cause dishy mcflatface to shut down. Starlink has been tested on boats and planes though by the military... so, in a few years. It will be a game-changer for van life and cruising though.
I'm optimistic - starlink uses a 'phased array' antenna, so it can steer the signal electronically through the disc of sky the dish is roughly aimed at. So although it might still need a gimballed contraption inside a dome, I I'm hopeful that it will be simpler and cheaper than the current options open to us.
OMG cute dress! Great job Ryan :) That was a ton of info. If there is enough dough in it Musk will put something together but the whole moving thing is an issue. Love these in-depth videos :) F
I dont think i could do 72kbs my current connection is 200Mbs but i am not on a boat. Reminds me of when modems where all the rage now they are outdated.
These are such valuable information videos, thanks for taking the time for your fellow sailors and wannabes. I've been in satellite comms for over 25 years, and it's always fun to hear about the new stuff and how it gets used in different applications--like sailing! Thanks for the video 👍
Thanks! Really like your videos. After a lifetime of sailing I am now planning to get my own boat and do longer trips, hence looking into this comms stuff. I think I'd try to setup something simple to be able to receive weather fax, using a simple SSB receiver + laptop software. Could be a cheap fall back solution, and maybe even the main solution (for me) while waiting on cheaper/better sat comms. Did you look into that? Meanwhile have fun in Bonaire, it's a nice island.
I got an ICOM M710 unlocked for ham for 50 USD at a boat flea market, A 140 antenna tuner on ebay for 200 and I ran a 10 guage wire up the mast ,Oh and a Kiss grounding plane I think 500 bucks. Around 800 total. It all works very well. And its quite interesting on the nets. Talk about the weather, where you're from and how well you'recoming in.
Have an InReach. Couldn't be happier. I'm more a hiker/kayaker, but being always connected is a game changer. If you can afford one, I highly recommend it. It could save your life.
Well thought out and organized, you glossed over so much but looking back you gave a brief look into the choices you were offered and I really appreciated it. We too chose the iridium Go and predict wind, though we were locked in and unable to start our cruising yet and I do wish there was a tutorial for sailors, perhaps the next video. Ryan your a natural. Subscribed for years. cheers
Thank you Ryan! You always are really good in explaining this electrical stuff. Polar Seal II? Hey, let me know when you are selling your boat. What kind of boat will be next?
not sure on the next boat. we kick around new ideas all the time. right now PS is really good, though we could use just a bit more space but if we do get some cash and go bigger we would probably go with a Garcia (again, if we had the $$) Ryan
You're missing another AM FM SSB Transceiver option, quite cheap in the USA, the 10 metre CB Radio ones. the Superstar 3900 one is just over 200 pounds here in the UK.Superstar are a tuall Cobra, and I used to have a Superstar 360 which was a relabeled Cobra 148, an Outstanding Radio . A good omni directional Base load antenna for Mast top mounting, shouldn't be expensive, and a cheap ATU isn't expensive. I'm a bit shocked really, that they don't seem to have caught on with Cfuisers, for over the horizon communication between boats? With Skip signals, I used to talk all around the World with mine, even without an amp.ifier. 👍🙂🇬🇧🏴🇺🇲
Hi, Ryan. You didn’t talk to much about why you dropped Inmarsat? Is the only difference speed and cost? Reason for asking is that I already have an old but working Sailor 150 Fleet broad (150 kbs) on my boat from the PO. Would you sell it and by the IGO? Having the possibility to use Sametime etc in an emergency or for Christmas, I think is an big advantage,. But if voice, email and weather is much more expensive, it’s definitely a dealbreaker..
The best satellite internet will be starting communication, by ,no another good communication when you can send live pictures and videos from the phone 📱 from any location ,noatter where you are sailing ⛵. Starling the future 100% My next voyage in 2023 sailing alone around the world ⛵ 🌎 for me will be the bright future that's for sure .Alon Musk the most generous and the smartest person on the planet .The tracker only text massage limits internet
Printer??? Lol faxes can be done on PC or mac hommie. Also pactor (now version 4)is for data transmission and has a bit rate rivaling iridium. I keep getting recommendations for this channel but like most RU-vid sailors it's just another newb trying to teach people as a pro. Ssb has seen a huge resurgence especially with SDR radios and dsc.
Yeah ! I should like to sail from La Réunion (FR), Indian ocean, Iridium Go with Predict Wind,. It's a good solution on Androïd ? Do I find it in France ? Thank's a lot. Take care. Jean.
Very informative. I hate to be critical. I'm watching on a TV with surround sound and hear lots of music in the background. Its kinda distracting. Why the music? When you are narrating, thats one thing, but when you are giving very informative information, cut the background music. Just a friendly thought. Great info once again.
Interesting video. The Vende Globe is finishing up. The sailors had starlink onboard. They were posting videos on Facebook from the southern ocean. They probably have more fund then the rest of us!
Cool you’re from Des Moines! I grew up in Algona, a couple hours north. I’m based in Puerto Rico now and spend much of the year between Germany and Finland.
I did buy and test the spot x yesterday before watching this video and it does not work too well. one pro supposedly is that it can have a text initiated from a phone to you because it has a unique phone number assigned but my problem was many texts were sent out of order and many texts were missing completely and never got to the other end and in all cases you never knew what did or didnt get through. Could easily create many miscommunications and I dont feel I can trust it at all so going to return it tomorrow hence I'm watching this video to see what to get instead. hope this helps. Chris Steingraber - NJ, USA
The Starlink antenna gets really warm, I am told. That wouldn't matter ... if that not also meant it's using a lot of electricity. Doesn't matter for the Navy, but bad for us sailors.
Ryan I think StarLlink will be a viable option for cruisers way before 5 years. Putting aside the issue of Geo locking which if Elon start to sell to the marine industry will obviously not be an issue there are two problems. The first is the user terminal you purchase these cost $500 and reportedly cost SpaceX $1500 to make. This is because they have no moving parts to track satellites. They do have motors to adjust the dish for installation but tracking those fast moving little buggers is done electronically steering the beam. Like an Aegis destroyer with those large flat radar arrays. So the first question are they good enough for a sailboat? The jury is still out however they are already trying to improve the ground terminals for price and performance so if it is not it will be. The second is ground stations, since you have to be in range of a satellite that can see you and see a ground station to make the connection. Even so if you are in the middle of the Atlantic since the satellites are a lot lower only 200- 500 miles up there would not be a ground station in range. Except Elon has thought of that a few of the latter satellites are equipped with Lasers to be able to talk satellite to satellite. This means that if there is no Ground stations in range it will relay it through enough satellites until there is. This was not done for the cruising community but because this means you need less Ground stations saves money If a ground station goes down well no problem the system can route around it which makes it more robust. Lastly speed of light through a vacuum is twice as fast as through fibre optics so the system can route your signal to near your destination before connecting to the internet making the whole system quicker. Officially there is only 14 satellites with this hardware in space 2 test ones and 12 recently launched into polar orbit because well engineers bits would freeze and fall off if they had to service a Polar ground station. Obviously this part of the system is still in development but Elon does not hang around and is launching 60 satellites each rocket so I doubt it will be long certainly not 5 years.
Awesome video. I'll be looking into one of these products when I hit the water. No point of getting excited while still on the hard, but by the time I go, high tech of today will be middle of the ground then, and less costly. Fair winds.
Loved this episode. What do you all use as your redundancy system if the Iridium fails, in InReach? If you were to do this again, would you buy the same things?
So funny enough, our Iridium Go DID in fact fail us on an ocean crossing, and we used the Garmin inReach as redundancy (though it wasn't setup so that was an issue). The incident is in a later video.... We have since gotten a new Iridum Go, and a satphone as backup.
Good videos I’m in the middle of doing research on lithium batteries. Question, do you guys know anything about SOK lithium batteries? Are they any good?
You video is fantastic! The best explanation I could find, and you are right. The dealer's website for the sat phones are horrible. Thank you very much for sharing.
I think I might have misunderstood something said on your last video. Is the give away system the one you used on your Atlantic passage or is it an extra one? If this was your long range comm suite for the Atlantic passage why are you giving it away? What is taking its place? By the way, this is a generous gift to a fellow cruiser.
Oh -La La Mrs Sophie in a dress !!/ so even though this communications has no practical use in my life at this time , I still let the vid run to the end and hammered the like button ;-) / any news of James and Philippa launching their new channel ?? and if you happen to see Zingaro James wandering around please tell him to hurry up and post a new video ! Thanks so much ! and Happy Valentines day you 2 Love Birds ;-) ;-)
SSB would be a good addition, satellite communication can and does fail. Though rare in traditional cruising ground, some countries restrict types of satellite phones. SV Delos experienced both Sat phone being impounded (in India) and equipment failing (in South Atlantic), Bryan was able to rig up SSB connection.
.... Awesome look into all the options Ryan ..... curious, what address did you give for starlink, Iowa (hope I am remembering correctly) or Sweden, pretty sure not Curacao being that it is too far south for the current starlink deployment .... I was hoping that one could take the hardware ashore (to have stationary point) and setup and then use a wifi router and pick it up on the boat anchored a distance offshore .... maybe not this year, but hopefully in a couple three years, thinking being that the rate of which tech is advancing these days ..... congratulations "Sailing Kerguelen" on being the winners .... in reality Ryan and Sophie are also winners because they had this great idea to impact someone else's life and it was a success ..... thx for sharing .... as always .. never stop dreaming, just dream bigger .. have fun be safe, save our oceans .....
@@RyanSophieSailing considering the cost of going SSB, it’s probably more cost effective to go SatCom anyway. If somebody is dead set on doing the ham thing, a technician ticket is only about $40usd. Normally, folks will get their Tech and General at the same time and be good to go for most any band you’d want to operate on.
A very precise and complete review of the most useful options, explained giving nothing for granted, so it's very easy to follow. That's excellent to understand what one really needs for his adventure on any given type of boat. Thanks a lot Ryan!
Well we didn't win but it was worth watching super cool cat Ryan! Careful Sophie he is trying to steal the show. Oh yeah congratulations to the winners sound very deserving.
The horizon is approx 3 miles for someone 6ft, SSB can communicate via line of sight for over thousands of miles, news flash EARTH IS OBVIOUSLY FLAT...
@@RyanSophieSailing Please watch this 1 min video Ryan, it ends the ball forever if you can still think straight... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A99ro6Y2L6w.html
How exciting after so long! Thank you for your channel as it has inspired us to purchase a sailboat and head out on an adventure ourselves. Next week we close on our 47ft Catalina sailboat! so excited!! We will live and sail her in New England this summer to get our legs and head south for the winter. Also thanks for the Tekacat recommendation at catamaran supply. Ironically they are based 15min up the road from us in RI. Small world. Anyway, I am so glad I found that boat it seems ideal for us, and we hope to get it in May. Keep sailing and Fair winds.
Oh my god how cool is that!!!!!! You should totally hit up Willem and Anett, they are a super cool couple of cruisers :) So excited for your new Catalina!!! Congrats!!! :D
Due to the phased array antennas Starlink might actually work on sailboats, even if they are rocking and rolling in an anchorage. People allegedly have tested that in their pools at home and it seems to be working fine. Also the geolocking is only a restriction of the beta program. They want to geolock their service to remove variables while still testing it. The biggest problem I see with Starlink on a sailboat currently would be power draw. Starlink uses close to a 100 watts, which is huge for a sailboat. You wouldn't want to have Starlink connected 24/7 with that power draw
It's still a big cost for those on a budget - 140/month, on top of everything else for something that's going to be used very little. Tricky decisions, but you only need one emergency and it's paid for itself. Well done to the winners.
That's how I see it, too... and for the constant weather update while being offshore for weeks. Also, when repairment needed in the middle of the ocean, you could send a middle quality photo to an expert to help you. Still, it's very expensive.
Nobody can tell you exactly how many satellites are in space !! Isn't that ODD, THATS BECAUSE THERE ARE ZERO SATELLITE'S UP THERE, what goes UP MUST COME DOWN
With a few hundred satalites that Musk has up there, he's doing a great job so far. He isn't using a dish. He's using a flat circuit board with hundreds phased array antennas printed on it making it less directional. When he he has a few thousand satalites up there it's going to be fantastic. I think if its not geo locked and you have a two axis gimbal it's going to be a game changer for a $100 / month USD you'll be able live stream your whole passage without turning it off, In fact you could live stream 3 or 4 cameras on 3 or 4 channels simultaneously . Just imagine the possibilities . 130 MBS is nothing to sneeze at and that's what we're getting right now. People up here in northern Ontario Can. are gobbling these up like crazy because the satalites are closer together in higher latitudes and they work better than southern latitudes for now, but the will change soon. Star link is going to be the best deal and i think that geolock is there to keep certain governments happy like China ,India ,Cuba ,Venezuela , Iran , but who wants to go to those hell holes anyways ! BTW you did a fantastic presentation as usual ,one of the very best channels on youtube ! Cheers
I was expecting at least the process of choosing by getting some numbers like in a lottery. And it’s sad that you didn’t even explain why do you choose this winner... Does anybody have the same feeling?
Iridium Go is an interesting concept for satellite communication, but you'll never see one on my boat. I don't like paying for cell phone service on a monthly basis. I hardly use my phone and I dislike all this technology that tracks your every move.
