Coming to this party extremely late, but...

"Doug Dotson" wrote in message
...

"Parallax" wrote in message
om...

Is being in
touch via e-mail and news groups really desirable or even practical?

E-mail is a great asset and easy if you are a ham or pay a small fee
for a service via marine SSB. Newsgroups are harder and much more
expensive. If you have a cellphone then access is cheap and easy for
both, pretty much the same as dialup but faster.

Is there any practical way to do e-mail while underway?

If you are a ham then Winlink is free and great. Sailmail is available
for marine SSB but costs $250/yr. Once again, if you are within cellphone
range then that is a great option.

Several folks use a satphone like a cellphone (which, of course, is only
useful near shore, with appropriate service on said shore, something not
necessarily guaranteed in the islands. While I - at least at the moment -
can't imagine that amount of financial overhead when we cast off, the
economics of it aren't awful for those willing to spend more than we expect
to.

One I know of is sailcharbonneau.com, where you'll find the saga of the
purchase of their phone. These folks are well endowed, and are in the last
lap of a shoreside year for charity off their Island Packet 40 something
boat, so perhaps they shouldn't be held up as typical, but I know that not
all are as penurious as we will be.

I look at it like/in comparison to my cell phone. When I'm off working on
the boat, my usual local plan of few minutes and no long distance gets
changed over to the unlimited access (go anywhere, call anywhere, in US),
beginning at 450 minutes for 60bux. The Globalstar package is $100 for 400,
and they allot the time not spent on the internet for calls home. So, given
that it's viable most places in the world, I think that's a pretty fair
bargain, the initial cost of acquisition aside (cell phones aren't "free",
either).

Mind, I believe they're also endowed with SSB (and perhaps Ham) and
weatherfax and other goodies, so it's not for lack of ability to get it
otherwise.

We're in the prove-the-radios phase of our electronics, and at the moment,
they're not proving, so I'm back on the table for various options. I'd
originally expected to do Winlink (they'll sell you a great CD with all
sorts of info as well as software to "practice" your tx/rx before you
actually get out to sea), but at the moment I neither have a license or a
working radio. If I have to start over with a new radio, the economics
might change my mind...

L8R

Skip


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain