On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:40:06 -0500, Larry wrote:

Pactor was a mistake as it's way
too expensive and proprietary, of course. But, if you want service, you
have to bite the bullet and buy it. Too bad, I think.


I don't think Pactor was a mistake at all. It is absolutely the
fastest and most reliable mesage handling system that I have seen on
HF/SSB. You get what you pay for, and the hardware is a one time
expense.


When Iridium went bankrupt, I stumbled upon an Iridium
phone/charger/etc., for $25 as they thought it was going dark. I kept it
for a museum piece, then suddenly Iridium was back, of course. It
connects but I don't buy service as I don't need it. If I were going
seriously to sea, I'd buy Iridium service. I've carried it to sea out
250 miles just to see how well it connected and it works great just
anywhere in a plastic yacht.

Iridium gets good reviews but costs about $1 per minute. That ends up
being an easy $10 per day to download a few EMAILs and weather
reports. Winlink/Pactor is $free, and as they say in NY, free is a
very good price.

When you get to civilization wifi is usually available for little or
nothing. Then everything becomes $free or nearly so.