Hi Simon, I got back to my Hong Kong friend and he said the people who returned their Iridium GO did not try use an external antenna. But apparently they believed that was not the only issue with the unit.

Looking at costs, US$125 a month for Iridium GO, adds to US$250 for 2 months, which is the same cost as a 12 month subscription to the not-for-profit SailMail Association email service. Members get 12 minutes connection time a day (averaged over a week) for 365 days, which is less than US$0.70 per day.

Using the same on-board HF/SSB radio used for voice communications, and a Pactor controller, there are no additional connection time/data charges to send and receive emails via the 20 plus SailMail stations around the world. SailMail membership also includes access request/download (free) GRIB charts, request/download (free) METAREA forecasts, request/download (free) coastal forecasts, and send (free) YOTREPS position reports.

SailMail 's (free) ShadowMail option can monitor one or more shore email accounts and send a summary of waiting email headers. Select Download to bring to the boat, Delete to remove or Ignore to leave in the shore email box. So only relevant emails are transferred to the boat. The others can be checked when shore internet access is available. This also protects the yacht 's SailMail email address from SPAM.

The yacht 's SailMail account can also be operated via any shore internet service, to send and receive emails, weather info etc.

The Pactor controller can also be used as a NAVTEX and WEATHERFAX receiver.

Just one comment. The Iridium Go does have an external aerial connection.
Simon

Here is a comment I received today from my contact in Hong Kong who is involved with RHKYC 's decision to require DSC capable HF/SSB radios on all of their events (racing and cruising) beyond coastal VHF range:

"The Delorme InReach and the Iridium Go and similar devices I have heard are of passable interest only in practice

The devices, being all in one with no external antennas, are really designed for land use. The Go for example we sold one of and the guy returned it after a month as it NEVER got a connection between HK and the Philippines

The only data and voice satellite systems we recommend are

Sat C- slow, external, unidirectional antenna
Inmarsat Fleet One, 100kbit, around USD6 per 1MB download
Inmarsat Fleetbroadband 150, around USD10 per 1MB download

Then, to call Mum, an Inmarsat Isatphone 2. But this we always say should never ever be regarded as an emergency communications device as you have to first create a link and then communicate over it which is difficult with a handheld device at the best of times!"

And this from my friend Terry Sparks ( www.Made-Simplefor-Cruisers.com )in the USA:

"Another example is the Baja Ha Ha boat that the whale hit and sunk. They had a poor EPIRB without GPS and the Coast Guard had trouble locating them in the raft. They had a VHF marine hand held and called the plane as it flew past. That was the only reason they found them according to the boat skipper. While it would be nice to have a Sat phone in the raft (you could get your email and leave some voice mails to family) it is important to have a hand held VHF to help coordinate your rescue. If the Coast Guard has a Sat Phone, you will not know the number."

Hope that helps.

Thanks David that 's really helpful.
Simon

This is the reply I received from PredictWind Support:

The Iridium GO! uses an internal GPS (no option for external antenna), and we have noticed GPS spikes (inaccuracies) in the data. In addition the GPS reports sometimes get delivered out of order. In order to fix this issue we apply a filter on the data to help eliminate the GPS spikes on the tracking page. However the GPS tracking reports do not have a date/time stamp so getting a filter to work 100% of the time is challenging. We have alerted Iridium of this issue and look forward to fixes in future firmware upgrades. In the meantime it would help if you leave the GPS tracking on continuously, so the filter we have developed has a better chance of success. You can delete your previous track if you want, by logging into your account and going to the GPS tracking, and selecting "delete all data".

When I had the YellowBrick, the position reports did have a date/time/course/speed stamp, so I have to conclude that the Iridium GO is not as advanced a piece of hardware/firmware as the YellowBrick.

Once more I 've had to complain to PredictWind about this woefully defective Iridium GO software. This time, it’s the tracking. Over the past week or so, I’ve been making my way along the channels inside Vancouver Island, and now I’ve reached Port McNeill. I have terrestrial internet for a day, and can look at my tracker map. It’s showing some crazy back-trackings that I didn’t do. You can see what I mean at http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Tystie. I’ve been coming to anchor for the night, and setting the tracker to ‘no update’, then setting it to a suitable time interval when I got under way again. What seems to be happening is that when I start the tracker again, the first position report it sends is one that should have been sent during the last period I was under way and tracking, but wasn’t.

I 'm having problems with the Iridium GO software. The mail and web part of it has taken to crashing when I download and open some, but not all, emails. I 've got tystie34@gmail.com set to forward to tystie@myiridium.net and I think, but am not sure, that this is where the problem lies. Also, the text editor misbehaves when I write a long email, in reply to another long email; it can 't cope after I 've filled a page. And I haven 't yet had the patience to wait long enough to open a web page! I 'm not impressed. I think this is a poorly-written and incompletely tested piece of software. When I 'm away from terrestrial internet, it 's better than nothing, but not as good as it ought to be.

Thanks Simon, Very useful comparison.

Did you contact DeLorne or Iridium about the problem and did they provide any solutions?

Did you send any messages to other people with the inReach and was that successful getting messages back and forth?

Have you tried the tracking feature of the inReach?

I have been considering one of these as a supplement to my own DSC HF/SSB radio setup, for trips ashore and as a backup.

We used a combination of Delorme and Iridium Go on a recent land based expedition but,strangely, texts between to two devices were rather unreliable. The Delorme has two way messaging built in. So why Delorme wouldn 't talk to GO is unclear.

We had no problems recieving or sending email / sms via GO and of course it is free to send web based SMS from the Iridium web site which is a huge bonus.

Hi Daria,

The DeLorme inReach might be worth considering as a lower-cost tracking and text message comms option, suited to taking into the liferaft, in case the on-board HF/SSB radio is not functioning (eg: problem with power supply) and for adventures ashore. Flexible subscription plans.

Anyone checked this already? See:

http://www.inreachdelorme.com/product-info/inreach-explorer.php